The 30-year-old East Harlem man accused of murdering Guyana-born New York City Police Officer Randolph Holder was indicted yesterday, the same day hundreds lined up outside a Queens church to bid adieu to the Brooklyn resident.
A grand jury indicted Tyrone Howard on charges of murder and robbery in the slaying of Officer Holder, who was shot in the head Oct. 20 near the FDR Drive in Harlem as his partner stood beside him. Howard is due back on court in November, authorities said Tuesday.
The indictment came as family, friends, hundreds of cops from across the country and the general public lined up for a public viewing outside the Greater Allen AME Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens Tuesday.
Officers saluted as his coffin draped in a green, blue and white flag was carried by some of their brothers in blue into the church. Inside, he was laid out in an open casket, resplendent in his police uniform. Holder is set to be eulogized today at a funeral also set for Allen AME.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who had accepted an invitation from the family and their pastor to eulogize Officer Holder, has said he will no longer speak. In a letter addressed to Officer Holder’s father, Randolph Holder Sr., Sharpton cited recent public criticism of his relationship with the police as his reason for declining.
Sharpton said that while he “respectfully” declines the invitation, he is committed to helping the family and will donate $5,000 to offset the funeral costs.
Officer Holder’s body will be flown to his homeland of Guyana Thursday and he is set to be buried there on Saturday.
A gun consistent with the one used to murder Guyana-born NYPD Officer Randolph Holder was found at approx. 3 a.m. on Sunday, October 25th. The .40 caliber handgun was found in the East River by NYPD divers who were deployed into the water and physically searched using their hands until they recovered the weapon.
Holder, a Flatlands, Brooklyn resident, was the fourth New York Police Department officer to be killed in the last 11 months, Police Commissioner William Bratton said. He was a fourth generation cop who after leaving Lodge, in Georgetown, Guyana 12 years ago, joined his father, Randolph Holder , Sr., in Far Rockaway, Queens. He lost his mother to cancer at age 17.
Initially, he took a job as a security guard at a Toys “R” Us store and then entered the New York Police Academy, joining the department in 2010.
During his five-year career he amassed 125 arrests as rose to an elite plainclothes anti-crime unit in a dangerous pocket of northern Manhattan.
He won department citations for excellent or meritorious police duty on six occasions as he proudly wore badge No. 13340.
Nationwide, 100 officers have died in the line of duty so far in 2015, up 15 percent from this time last year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a non-profit law enforcement information clearinghouse.
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