At the Corner of Myrtle and Tompkins, the Day After the Police Shootings in Bed-Stuy

Talking to the residents of the Tompkins Houses on Sunday afternoon. Liu & Ramos died on Tompkins Avenue, just north of Myrtle Avenue, in front of an apartment

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Image via Complex Original
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Police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were killed Saturday afternoon in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Liu, 32, was a newlywed, and Ramos, 40, was a father of two. Both lived in Brooklyn. A Chinese-American and a Puerto Rican-American, they represented the multi-ethnic professional elite that is the backbone of modern New York City. You can read more about their lives here and here.

Liu and Ramos died on Tompkins Avenue, just north of Myrtle Avenue, in front of a clean red-brick wall that supports a building housing apartments and small businesses. Mike’s Pizza is on the corner of Tompkins and Myrtle; its entrance is literally around the corner, 20 feet from where the officers were shot. In the other direction is a small vacant lot where an out-of-commission boat sits on risers. There are three churches in the immediate vicinity: the New Testament Church of God on Myrtle, visible from the spot where Liu and Ramos were ambushed; the Greater Free Gift Baptist Church beyond the boat and around the corner on Stockton Street; and the Greater Cross Road Baptist Church, past Mike’s and across Myrtle to the south.

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