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Murder of Brian Moore

Shooting of a police officer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ19881706 ↗
Source-derived summary

The murder of Brian Moore, a New York City police officer, took place on May 2, 2015, in Queens, New York, where he was shot. Moore died two days later at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, at the age of 25. His partner, Erik Jansen, was shot at but escaped injury. Demetrius Blackwell was arrested in connection with the shooting, and was formally charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and other charges. On December 19, 2017, Blackwell was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Brian Moore

Brian Moore (June 30, 1989 – May 4, 2015) was the son of an NYPD Sergeant with whom he lived at the time he was shot. He grew up in North Massapequa, New York on Long Island and graduated from Plainedge High School in 2007. He made over 150 arrests during his five-year career.

Events

On the night of May 2, Moore, who was on duty as a plainclothes officer at the time, and his partner, Erik Jansen, were patrolling around Queens Village, Queens, a residential neighborhood, when they saw a 35-year-old man, identified as Demetrius Blackwell, adjust his waistband. According to New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton, the officers then told Blackwell to stop, whereupon Blackwell turned and began firing shots into the officers' car.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Murder of Brian Moore” is shooting of a police officer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Murder, Brian and Moore, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2015, 2017, 1989, 2007—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Murder, Brian and Moore is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “shooting of a police officer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19881706. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2017, 1989 and 2007.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Murder of Brian Moore primary sources, Murder of Brian Moore archive and Murder research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Murder of Brian Moore” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.