Two NYPD officers shot in gun fight in the Bronx
Two NYPD officers are spending Thanksgiving in hospital after being shot during a confrontation with an armed suspect in the Bronx on Wednesday night.
Commissioner Dermot Shea told a press conference that police received a 911 call to say a suspect with a gun was acting suspiciously on Beaumont Avenue and East 187th Street just after 8pm on Wednesday.
Surveillance footage posted online shows the two officers, a male and a female, approach a man sitting on a stoop.
“Within seconds, they are in a gun battle,” Mr Shea said.
The suspect allegedly fired several shots at the two officers after the male officer ordered him to take his hands out of his pockets.
The female officer, a US Air Force reserve, was shot twice in the upper arm and managed to return fire, hitting the suspect several times.
The male officer, an eight-year veteran of the force, was struck by a bullet to the right armpit area as he tried to wrestle the suspect to the ground.
The bullet exited his left chest, Mr Shea said, and the whole ordeal was over in only two to three seconds.
Both officers were taken to St Barnabas Hospital and are expected to make a full recovery.
The suspect was also taken to St Barnabas and is also expected to survive after undergoing surgery.
Speaking at the hospital on Wednesday night, Mr Shea said the firearm recovered from the suspect was reported stolen in Georgia last year.
He said the suspect was a career criminal with “far too many arrests, still on the streets of New York City”.
“It would appear to me that the community is doing their job ... It’s time for the rest of the system to do its job, and make the streets as safe as they can be.”
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio also paid tribute to the officers’ bravery.
“We’ve also got to recognise there’s too many guns out there. It’s another example of a gun from out of state comes into our city, hurts a New Yorker,” he said.
“Thank God there is one more shooter off the streets because of the bravery of these absolutely extraordinary officers.”
Read More
NYPD hunt for Central Park rape suspect amid three separate NYC assaults in less than an hour
He's running for DA, challenging the NYPD and the status quo
Mayor blasts NYPD officers who threw commuter off subway after he told them to wear masks
