Edward Byrne (police officer)

Around 3:30 a.m. on February 26, 1988, Byrne was sitting in his marked patrol car on 107th Ave. and Inwood St. in the South Jamaica section of Queens in New York City.

He was assigned to keep an eye on the house of a local Guyanese immigrant named Arjune,[a] who had repeatedly called the police to report illegal activities on his street.

Despite the recent violence and an ongoing crime wave overtaking South Queens, Byrne was assigned to the post alone.

All four were sentenced to 25 years to life by Queens Supreme Court Justice Thomas A. Demakos, who had presided over the trials.

[5] Cobb, in a videotaped confession that was played at trial, provided graphic details of the killing, told how the participants had bragged of it afterward in the aftermath, and indicated that the killing had been ordered from jail by the drug dealer Howard "Pappy" Mason,[6] the leader of their gang.