What to Know
- Brooklyn D.A. Ken Thompson died Sunday after a battle with cancer, his family announced.
- Thompson, who was elected in 2013, announced a leave of absence to battle the ailment on Tuesday.
- Thompson has been credited with setting up a review board that has helped free 21 people wrongly convicted of murder and other crimes
Memorial services for Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson have been set.
A wake for the prosecutor, who died Sunday after a battle with cancer, will be held from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at the Christian Cultural Center in East New York.
A homegoing service for Thompson, 50, will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at the center on Saturday.
Thompson took a leave of absence with from the Kings County District Attorney's Office to battle his ailment on Tuesday, and his family announced that he had died on Sunday. Thompson never specified what type of cancer for which he had been seeking treatment.
Thompson took office in January 2014 after defeating Charles Hynes, who had been the district attorney for more than 20 years. He was the first African American to be elected as Brooklyn's district attorney.
Thompson's also worked as a former federal prosecutor, where he prosecuted the case against a police officer accused in the 1997 assault of Abner Louima in a precinct bathroom.
He also spent some time in private practice, where he represented Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid who accused former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault in 2011.
His family said he also worked with the U.S. Congress to get the Justice Department to reinvestigate the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi..
Local
As prosecutor, Thompson expanded an initiative in the office that reviews cases for potential wrongful convictions. In the last three years, 21 people who were wrongfully convicted of murder and other crimes saw their convictions vacated or dropped.
Among his high-profile prosecutions in office has been that of Peter Liang, an NYPD officer who was tried in the death of an unarmed black man in a housing project stairwell. Liang was found guilty of manslaughter, but a judge downgraded it to criminally negligent homicide. Thompson decided against seeking prison time in sentencing.
Thompson was the son of one of the first female NYPD officers and a graduate of New York City public schoools. He graduated magna cum laude from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and earned his law degree from NYU Law School.
Thompson his survived by his wife, Lu-Shawn Thompson; two children, Kennedy and Kenny; his mother; father; brother; and sister.
