One of New York City’s most notorious cop killers, the gangbanger who murdered Police Officer Edward Byrne as he sat in his patrol car in Queens in 1988, could become the 44th convicted cop killer released from prison in the last eight years when he appears before the parole board later this month, The Post has learned.
The ruthless assassination of the rookie cop by David McClary on the orders of a drug lord stunned a city in the throes of the crack epidemic in the 1980s — and became a national symbol of the era’s criminality.
On February 26, 1988, McClary and three accomplices ambushed Byrne, who was 22 years old and had only been on the force for a month. He was guarding the South Jamaica home of a witness who intended to testify against drug lord Howard “Pappy” Mason…