The Queens District Attorney asked a parole board last week not to release the Queens man convicted of the 1988 murder of rookie NYPD officer Edward Byrne, whose killing sparked outrage nationwide and kickstarted a police crackdown on the violent crack gangs that dominated the city.
In a letter to the state’s parole board shared with the media this week, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz urged the board to deny parole to David McClary, one of four men ordered by Queens drug kingpin Howard “Pappy” Mason to kill the young police officer.
Katz said McClary shouldn’t be released because he had taken too long to admit to his role in Byrne’s murder, one of the most notorious killings of an NYPD officer in the city’s history, and because he had yet to fully explain why he pulled the trigger and shot Byrne in the head five times as he sat in his police car in South Jamaica…