Man Convicted of Killing NYPD Officer in 1981 Dies in Jail

A convicted cop-killing militant who went to jail for gunning down two NYPD officers on a Queens street in 1981, has died.

A convicted cop-killing militant who went to jail for gunning down two NYPD officers on a Queens street in 1981, has died, officials said Monday.

Abdul Majid, 65, who was serving a 25-years-to-life sentence at the upstate Five Points Correctional Facility, died in a hospital over the weekend, according to a correction department spokesman, reports the New York Daily News.

A spokesman for the Onondaga County Medical Examiner's office said Majid died of natural causes — acute cholecystitis, which is an inflammation of the gall bladder.

Majid, who went by the name Anthony Laborde before landing in prison and converting to Islam, was convicted with an accomplice for the murder of Officer John Scarangella and the attempted murder of Officer Richard Rainey.

The two officers stopped a white van in St. Albans, Queens, at 10:30 a.m.in April 1981 to question the two men inside about a series of local burglaries.

Majid and Black Liberation Army partner James Dixon-York emerged from the van with guns blazing, emptying their 15-shot, 9mm pistols at the officers.

Scarangella died after the attack. Rainey survived, but was forced to quit the department. He died last year.

Dixon-York died in prison in 2009.

Majid was scheduled for a parole hearing next month.

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