New York’s Finest is in the news again. NYPD Lt. Francis Cole gunned down his wife, Elana, and then killed himself on Monday at their Long Island home. According to the NY Daily News, Cole, 48, who worked out of Brooklyn’s 68th Precinct, stabbed his wife in the chest with a kitchen knife before shooting her in the head at their home in Centereach. He then shot himself in the head.
Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick said that Cole’s 18-year-old daughter tried to intervene before her parents’ fight turned deadly, but was struck in the face. The daughter called 911 at 12:35 p.m. to report her father had shot her mother, Fitzpatrick said. They had been going through a divorce.
Cole and his wife were found in the upstairs bedroom of their two-story house. He was still alive when cops found him and rushed him to the hospital, where he later died. Besides the couple’s teenage daughter, Elana Coles’s 81-year-old mother was in the house at the time, Fitzpatrick said. The couple is also survived by three sons, all in their 20s.
This cop is no stranger to controversy. According to the NY Daily News, in 2005, he was named in a racial discrimination suit filed by a black female officer in the 68th Precinct. The officer accused Cole of running an “old-boys club” within the NYPD that prevented her from being promoted. He was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I hope his daughter will get counselling for witnessing her father shooting her mother. There is always something in the news about New York City’s Finest and it seems that they have a penchant for breaking the same law they are supposed to uphold. It is shameful that more psychological counseling isn’t being done. They need more sensitivity training, without a doubt.
Filed under: Elana Cole, Lt. Francis Cole, Murder-Suicide, NY's Finest, NYPD, police brutality, Racial Discrimination
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