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 sprung from prison in the last eight years when he faces 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 kingpin stunned a city in the throes of the crack epidemic in the 1980s — and became a national symbol of the era’s lawlessness.
Byrne was just 22 and on the force for just a month when he was ambushed by McClary and three accomplices on Feb. 26, 1988. He was guarding the South Jamaica home of a witness who was planning to testify against druglord Howard “Pappy” Mason.
McClary snuck up on Byrne as he sat alone in a marked patrol car and shot him five times in the head…