A New York professor accused two Suffolk County police officers of murdering their attacker after they had been stabbed when responding to a call, the New York Post reported.
The officers were called to a Medford residence on Dec. 28 when the suspect reportedly threatened his roommate with a fire extinguisher, the NYP reported. The suspect inflicted both officers with serious stab wounds before being fatally shot by one of the cops.
Anna Hayward, who teaches at the Stony Brook University School of Welfare, reportedly accused the two officers of murder in a comment on a Stony Brook Medicine Instagram post which was updating the community on the two officers’ injuries, according to the NYP. One officer was reportedly treated for critical neck injuries and a third was transported for “minor injuries,” according to the NYP.
“This was a wellness check- why didn’t they de-escalate the situation? Why did a man have to die?” Hayward wrote, according to a screenshot of the now-deleted comment obtained by the NYP. “What about the man they murdered?”
The account is no longer active on Instagram.
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“We appreciate the members of law enforcement who work to keep our community safe and we are proud of our doctors at Stony Brook Medicine for the quality medical care they provided the injured officers; we wish them a speedy recovery,” Stony Brook University officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The comments made online were from what appears to be a faculty member’s private account that is not affiliated with Stony Brook University.”
Lou Civello, vice president of the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association, told the DCNF that Hayward’s comment was “incredibly ignorant” and harmful to the officer, the officer’s family and the public.
“When you say things with a total lack of knowledge of a situation that might make officers hesitant in the future to take action,” he explained. “You put their lives in danger and you put the lives of the public in danger. This was a clear case of self-defense. The officers were completely justified and these officers are heroes. If they don’t act, what we have is probably a dead social worker who was there in the first place… and probably some dead residents.”
Civello said that the PBA is “thankful” the university issued a statement about the professor’s comments that additional measures need to be taken to reduce anti-police rhetoric in the classroom.
The Suffolk County Police Department declined to comment about the professor’s remarks but told the DCNF that one officer had been released from the hospital while the other remains admitted.
Hayward did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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