Police: Man who shot fireman is killed in police standoff

A reputed high-ranking member of the Bloods street gang was to be arrested on parole violations when he shot a firefighter, according to authorities. The suspect was killed in a six-hour standoff Friday.
Garland Tyree, 38, who had been communicating with police negotiators, ascended the basement stairs of a two-family Staten Island home, firing an assault rifle at around noon Friday, according to police officials. Police also fired shots, fatally wounding Tyree.
A U.S. Marshals task force had attempted to arrest Tyree for violating federal parole when smoke emerged from his girlfriend's apartment, said Robert Boyce, New York Police Department chief of detectives.
Firefighters were responding to the scene when Tyree opened fire, striking FDNY Lt. James Hayes in the left calf and buttocks, Boyce said. The lieutenant is in stable condition at a hospital. Officials said Hayes is the first firefighter to be shot in the line of duty since 1994.
Before the deadly gunfight that resulted in Tyree's death, he had fired four shots, including two at police that didn't hit anyone, police said. He had been previously convicted of weapons, drug and assault charges.
An attorney for Tyree declined to comment. But a lawyer who represented him on a 2004 federal weapons conviction, for which he was sentenced to 10 years, said Tyree was "a really smart young man who never caught a break."
"He managed to turn everything good that came his way into something bad, which is what happens when you grow up in a crack-infested environment," said Susan G. Kellman.
Tyree had been arrested 18 times and had been on probation since last summer, Boyce said. Tyree was on supervised release following a 2013 conviction of violating federal probation by using drugs, associating with known gang members and convicted felons, court papers show.
A spokeswoman for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn declined to comment, but federal court documents portrayed Tyree as an influential member of the Bloods with a violent record.
He pleaded guilty to weapon possession charges in connection with a 1995 murder and subsequently to two assaults while in custody -- once slashing an inmate on a bus between court and the Rikers Island jail complex and another time slashing an inmate so badly that the inmate required 60 stitches.
A July 2013 letter from federal prosecutors maintains that even while on parole, Tyree attended a 2012 meeting of gang members, used drugs and was paid dues by other gang members. In a court proceeding, Tyree denied he was still a Blood.