Just as he was turning his life around.
Via NY Daily News
His death wish came true.
Gangbanging ex-con Garland Tyree made good Friday on his vow of a fight to the fatal finish, dying in a shootout with police after an intense six-hour standoff, officials said.
“Today I die,” the career criminal declared in a chilling Facebook post about an hour after he ignited a smoke grenade and pumped two bullets into an FDNY lieutenant as a routine arrest went wildly awry.
The deadly day began around 5:45 a.m. when a team of city cops and federal marshals tried to grab Tyree, a high-ranking member of the notorious Bloods street gang, who traveled to the Bahamas, a violation of his parole.
A police source said the trip was tied to a drug deal. The Staten Island drama ended shortly after noon when their doomed and deranged target, in a bulletproof vest, charged up the steps from his Staten Island basement apartment with his AK-47 blazing.
Minutes later, Tyree’s bullet-riddled body was lying on the ground outside the apartment entrance. Tyree had served nearly two decades behind bars and vowed never to return.
“He came out firing numerous rounds,” said NYPD Chief Harry Widen of the Special Operations Division. “Our officers immediately returned fire.”[…]
Tyree spent virtually his entire adult life behind bars, and was a high-ranking “O.G.” in the Bloods, said Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.
His first bust was on a homicide rap at age 16, followed by 17 more arrests — including three federal convictions, two on gun charges. He was also found guilty of assaulting another inmate while in the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, inflicting a gash that required 60 stitches to close.