The man accused of shooting a cop to death in East Harlem Tuesday night is known as a “half loner-half lunatic” who began his life of crime at the tender age of 13 — and was being sought in connection with another shooting when he killed Officer Randolph Holder, police sources said.
Suspect Tyrone Howard, 30, was wanted for questioning about an eight-week old shooting in the same neighborhood when he swapped shots with Holder and his partner on a pedestrian overpass above the FDR Drive near 120th St. around 8:30 p.m., officials said.
During the exchange, Holder, a third-generation police officer whose family hails from Guyana, was shot in the forehead. The brave public housing cop later died at Harlem Hospital Center.
Howard was shot in the leg. He was treated at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and charged with murder on Wednesday.
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Police believe that just weeks before he allegedly exchanged fire with Holder, Howard shot and wounded a 28-year-old man in the arm and stomach on E. 105th St. in the East River Houses on Sept. 1 at 12:10 a.m.
He was also being sought for skipping out on a court-ordered drug treatment program, officials said.
After being arrested with more than a dozen others in a drug sweep of the East River Houses last year, Howard pleaded guilty in a Manhattan drug court to criminal sale of a controlled substance. He was expected to serve 24 months in jail, but a judge decided to defer the sentence as long as he took part in a court-mandated drug treatment program.
The judge made his decision based on a sob story from Howard’s attorney, who said his client was addicted to PCP and had two children he needed to take care of, law enforcement sources said.
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Yet Howard didn’t attend the drug treatment program. Instead, he got involved in the East River Houses drug game, sources said.
The September shooting was drug-related, according to Deputy Chief William Aubry.
“He’s been trying to avoid us since Sept. 1,” Aubry said, adding that the NYPD’s Violent Fugitive Task Force had tried to apprehend Howard 10 times at locations he was expected to frequent — such as the drug treatment program.
Howard’s arrest history includes busts for assault, robbery, criminal trespass, public lewdness and conspiracy, officials said.
He’s also been arrested 11 times on narcotics and marijuana possession charges and was sent to prison twice after being convicted on drug offenses — in 2007 and again in 2013, court records show.
Even when he was behind bars, he kept slinging dope, according to cops.
While locked up in Rikers Island in May 2013 awaiting a court date, he was rearrested when he was caught hawking 33 clear plastic bags of crack to other inmates, officials said.
In June 2009, he was arrested for opening fire on three people at the East River Houses, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said. His victims included two boys, ages 7 and 11, who were wounded but survived, officials said.
Police sources said Howard is affiliated with East Harlem’s East Army gang, but has not been an active participant.
“He wasn’t a major gang member,” a police source said. “He was more of a half-loner, half-lunatic.”
