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Former New York City Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly speaks publicly for the first time about a Rikers Island inmate’s plot to behead him and bomb NYPD police headquarters in 2007.
David Brown Jr., a 47-year-old Brooklyn felon, wanted to hire a hitman to kill and dismember Kelly, who led the New York police from 2002 to 2013.
Brown had been enraged by the November 2006 police killing of Sean Bell, who was shot the morning of his wedding while unarmed.
Brown blamed Kelly for the incident and wanted him beheaded as punishment, as well as bombing the NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza. Brown was so determined that he told himself that he was willing to pay $165,000 to get the job done.
An undercover officer, Chuck Byam, who is now a 25-year retired NYPD veteran, was interviewed for a new A&E documentary series called ‘Undercover: Caught on Tape,’ which details how authorities thwarted the scheme. 2007.
Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has discussed a 2007 plot by Rikers Island inmate David Brown Jr. to behead him and bomb police headquarters.
Kelly said that Brown had been identified as the suspect and that at the time he was in jail on Rikers Island, so he felt relatively safe. The plot did not cause him too much anxiety.
Kelly said the chilling plot was ultimately foiled thanks to the work of the undercover officer, whom he praised as an unsung hero.
Kelly recounted how Brown, 47, had been identified and was in prison at the time, so he felt relatively safe and was not overly anxious about the plot.
“We ID’d this guy and he was in prison,” Kelly, now 81, said in the documentary. “I felt relatively safe. It didn’t really shake me that much. You probably don’t want to hear that, but that’s pretty much what it was.
However, Kelly acknowledged that when she was faced with the threat and the level of detail with which she contained it still caused her concern.
The threat was different from a more standard sinister but anonymous phone call, according to Kelly.
‘The difference here is that we knew who this individual was… We knew he was violent and we knew he had money. He had a house that was worth at least $400,000, so he was different from the other threats. That’s when we decided to go undercover. Kelly explained.
Undercover cop Byam had a couple of recorders in his pockets for the in-person meeting, during which he was recorded asking if he could get explosives to blow up the NYPD headquarters, pictured above.
Brown was a violent individual who had money and owned a home worth at least $400,000.
The authorities decided to try to use an undercover officer to investigate the plot.
The officer, Byam, went to Rikers Island on February 23, 2007 to meet with Brown and set up the hit.
Unbeknownst to Brown, Byam had a couple of tape recorders hidden in his pockets for the in-person meeting, during which he recorded himself asking if he could get explosives to blow up the NYPD headquarters.
“Well, what I have to do is kill the police commissioner, I want him killed,” Brown told Byam on the tape.
‘I just can’t take it anymore. Every time something happens, how the police commissioner backs up the police. That kind of thing frustrated me to the point of wanting to get him killed,” Brown continued.
Brown said he wanted to feel like a terrorist and he wanted them to feel like he was a “fucking terrorist.”
“I need people to feel my anger and rage,” Brown told Byam. ‘Every second of every day that lives burns my soul. I take it personally every time he glosses over certain things that happen.
Despite Brown’s words, Byam concluded that the plot had nothing to do with any foreign terrorist group and was simply a one man vendetta.
The two came to an agreement on payment, shook hands, and Byam left.
This guy has balls. Byam told A&E: ‘It’s not that he wants to kill another drug dealer or a rival. He wants to kill the New York City Police Commissioner. That’s big. I don’t see how you’re comfortable with yourself wanting to take someone’s life.
Brown was then arrested again while in jail and charged with two counts of solicitation, eventually receiving an additional six years behind bars.
Brown had been enraged by the November 2006 police killing of Sean Bell, pictured, who was shot the morning of his wedding while unarmed.
Brown had previously been convicted in 2001 of attempting to kill his wife and was serving time for violating a protection order for the same woman.
He had also spent seven years in prison for armed robbery between 1981 and 1988.
Byam said he was honored to have made a difference in the daily lives of New Yorkers, even though they would never know he was responsible.
‘I made a difference to ordinary New Yorkers’ – I made a difference in their lives. Even though they will never know that I was responsible, I still feel good about the difference I made in New York City,” Byam recounted.
Then-President Barack Obama sent her a congratulatory letter, and New York Senator Chuck Schumer sent her a flag that had flown over the nation’s Capitol in her honor.
Kelly praised undercover cops as unsung heroes working in the dark with little reward.
“He did a great job,” Kelly said. ‘You know, you don’t think about those things in the normal course of business… but when you’re faced with something with all those details, the specificity of the threat, then you worry.
“They are protecting all of us by risking their lives,” Kelly said. She also acknowledged that Byam did a great job and was glad that he was there to thwart the plot against her.