It has been a long ordeal for the families of Detectives Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin. The two men were murdered in 2003 during an undercover operation targeting gun dealers on Staten Island. Yesterday their families received closure — and justice — when a jury recommended that Ronell Wilson, the man convicted as the trigger puller, be given the death penalty.

It is, according to the Associated Press, the first time in more than 50 years that a jury has recommended the death penalty in a federal case in New York. It is also an appropriate moment for a jury to do so. Prosecutors had described Wilson as a “ticking time bomb … who’s already gone off once,” reported NY1 News. And the ticking bomb had ambitions.

Wilson was a member of the notorious Bloods street gang, which had been dealing drugs and guns all over Staten Island. As one of his former partners in crime told it on the witness stand, Wilson wanted to work his way up to the highest rank in the Bloods, an O.G., or original gangster. One of the ways to do that quickly is by killing police officers.

It’s unclear whether Wilson knew that Andrews and Nemorin were undercover police detectives or if he just wanted to double cross them on the gun deal they were about to make. But it can be said that anyone who would murder two men over $1,200 doesn’t deserve another chance anyhow. He killed them coldly, shooting each once in the back of the head, execution-style.

Later, said prosecutors, he wrote rap lyrics about the deed, boasting that “I ain’t gonna stop until I’m dead.” Now it looks like he’ll get his wish. This is a case in which even those who have opposed the death penalty on principle, such as the mayor, have been prepared, as the mayor has, to let justice take its course. No one takes the death penalty lightly, but if it cannot be used for those who murder police officers, it’s hard to imagine where it can be used.