Exclusive | Infamous gangbanger who married NYPD rookie could be released from prison and join 43 other cop killers sprung in just 8 years
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.Byrne’s killing struck such a chord that then-President Ronald Reagan called his family to offer condolences.President George H.W.
Bush later brought the officer’s badge with him to the Oval Office, where he kept it on his desk.Mason, 65, who ordered the cop’s murder from jail, was sentenced to life in prison for drug-racketeering charges that included Byrne’s murder.He is currently being held at Devens, a federal prison in Ayers, Mass., records show.
The three accomplices were all convicted of murder.The getaway driver, Scott Cobb, was paroled in 2023.Two other men, Todd Scott and Phillip Copeland, remain behind bars — for now.McClary, now 59 and at the Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo, has served 36 years of a maximum life sentence.
He comes up for parole on an unknown date later this month — his eighth hearing so far.The Byrne family, speaking out for the first time in decades, is outraged he is even being allowed to sniff freedom.“This was someone who was clearly the most culpable and dangerous out of the group, but to this day he still denies any knowledge of wh...