Post by coots on Jan 27, 2012 18:46:41 GMT -5
NY POST
40 Years of Pain
Two Police Widows Reflect on ’72 Slays
HONORED: A plaque at the Ninth Precinct tells the story of NYPD cops Rocco Laurie and Gregory Foster, slain by radicals 40 years ago today.
Rocco Laurie
Gregory Foster
1/26/12 - Not even 40 years can erase the pain and sorrow of the coldblooded, racially motivated public execution of two NYPD cops.
Children were left without a father. Wives were left without husbands. And a city was left without answers.
So when retired cops gather today to commemorate the murder of two of their fellow heroes, it will seem as though no time has passed.
“They don’t forget,” said Adelaide Laurie, whose husband, Rocco, and his partner, Gregory Foster, were gunned down while on Lower East Side street patrol on Jan. 27, 1972. “I’m astounded to this day that if you mention his name to a cop, they know who he is.”
Rocco Laurie, 23, and Foster, 22, were killed by three members of the Black Liberation Army, a radical, violent outgrowth of the Black Panthers.
As Laurie and Foster — Marines who had served in Vietnam — lay dying, the gunmen continued pumping bullets into them.
No one has ever been convicted for the slayings.
“I remember that night,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday in a statement.
“I remember responding to the scene as a young sergeant, and I remember the horror we all felt at the coldblooded murder of our fellow officers. These two men, who had given so much to their city and country, were cut down in the prime of their lives.”
The BLA took responsibility for the murders and said the cops were killed in retaliation for 29 inmates killed by law-enforcement officers in the infamous Attica prison riots several months earlier. Ten hostages were also killed in the Attica melee.
It apparently didn’t matter to the BLA that Foster was black. In fact, authorities have speculated that Laurie and Foster were targeted because of their diverse partnership.
But as far as Jacqueline Foster is concerned, her husband — a father of two — was assassinated for one reason only: because he was a cop.
“They were out to shoot police officers,” she said. “No cop deserves to be shot. The way he went, that stays in my memory.”
So, too, do the memories of Gregory Foster, an aspiring lawyer whose greatest joys were his family and helping people.
“I see him every day in my kids,” Jacqueline said, “especially in my son. My daughter was only 5 months old at the time, so she never knew him personally, but, trust me, she knows him; we made sure of that. It’s an empty space in our hearts.”
“We had so many hopes and dreams,” said Adelaide Laurie, who will attend a ceremony today at the Ninth Precinct station house, where the officers worked.
“We had just moved into this house. I’ve never been able to move, because this was his home.
“We were going to have three kids . . . I think back on all of these things that never happened. I’ll never know what he would have been.”
Rest in Peace
40 Years of Pain
Two Police Widows Reflect on ’72 Slays
HONORED: A plaque at the Ninth Precinct tells the story of NYPD cops Rocco Laurie and Gregory Foster, slain by radicals 40 years ago today.
Rocco Laurie
Gregory Foster
1/26/12 - Not even 40 years can erase the pain and sorrow of the coldblooded, racially motivated public execution of two NYPD cops.
Children were left without a father. Wives were left without husbands. And a city was left without answers.
So when retired cops gather today to commemorate the murder of two of their fellow heroes, it will seem as though no time has passed.
“They don’t forget,” said Adelaide Laurie, whose husband, Rocco, and his partner, Gregory Foster, were gunned down while on Lower East Side street patrol on Jan. 27, 1972. “I’m astounded to this day that if you mention his name to a cop, they know who he is.”
Rocco Laurie, 23, and Foster, 22, were killed by three members of the Black Liberation Army, a radical, violent outgrowth of the Black Panthers.
As Laurie and Foster — Marines who had served in Vietnam — lay dying, the gunmen continued pumping bullets into them.
No one has ever been convicted for the slayings.
“I remember that night,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday in a statement.
“I remember responding to the scene as a young sergeant, and I remember the horror we all felt at the coldblooded murder of our fellow officers. These two men, who had given so much to their city and country, were cut down in the prime of their lives.”
The BLA took responsibility for the murders and said the cops were killed in retaliation for 29 inmates killed by law-enforcement officers in the infamous Attica prison riots several months earlier. Ten hostages were also killed in the Attica melee.
It apparently didn’t matter to the BLA that Foster was black. In fact, authorities have speculated that Laurie and Foster were targeted because of their diverse partnership.
But as far as Jacqueline Foster is concerned, her husband — a father of two — was assassinated for one reason only: because he was a cop.
“They were out to shoot police officers,” she said. “No cop deserves to be shot. The way he went, that stays in my memory.”
So, too, do the memories of Gregory Foster, an aspiring lawyer whose greatest joys were his family and helping people.
“I see him every day in my kids,” Jacqueline said, “especially in my son. My daughter was only 5 months old at the time, so she never knew him personally, but, trust me, she knows him; we made sure of that. It’s an empty space in our hearts.”
“We had so many hopes and dreams,” said Adelaide Laurie, who will attend a ceremony today at the Ninth Precinct station house, where the officers worked.
“We had just moved into this house. I’ve never been able to move, because this was his home.
“We were going to have three kids . . . I think back on all of these things that never happened. I’ll never know what he would have been.”
Rest in Peace
