Exclusive | NYPD cop killer up for release as victims outraged daughter fights back: He should be in jail for the rest of his life

A killer who fatally shot an NYPD cop in the head in Brooklyn nearly 40 years ago is up for release — but the victim’s outraged daughter wants him to rot behind bars for the “for the rest of his life.”Francisco Rodriguez was 22 and had been out of prison on parole for just 42 days when he killed Transit Officer Robert Venable on Sept.22, 1987.“It doesn’t matter if he is a model prisoner or if he helped others,” Januari Venable, who was 8 when her dad was murdered, told the state Parole Board on Oct.

11.“Because of him I didn’t get to have a dad.

I didn’t get to have somebody there for me that could tell me everything would be all right.” Now 58, Rodriguez is behind bars at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Dutchess County.If he is paroled, he will become the 44th cop killer freed by the state since 2017.Officer Venable, a single dad, called his daughter the night of his murder to let her know he’d be home late.“I was the last one to talk to him,” she said.

“He said he had an arrest so he was going to be home late.He said, ‘Go to bed’ because I used to wait up for him.”Venable and six other transit cops responded to a call of an armed man on Pitkin Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn, while transporting prisoners.Venable was searching the area when two men burst out of a Pitkin Avenue building and began firing, striking Venable, who was in plainclothes, once in the head.

An Uzi was one of the weapons used in the attack, cops said at the time.He was rushed to the hospital and fought until his final breath.“My aunt said that the night everything happened, he coded three times,” the daughter recalled.“He was a fighter and he was fighting for his life.” Rodriguez was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 37 years to life in prison.

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