Tuesday, January 06, 2015

Two New York City Police Officers Shot in the Bronx
By MARK MORALES,  JOE JACKSON and ANDREW TANGEL
Wall Street Journal
January 6, 2015

Two New York City police officers were shot Monday night while responding to an apparent robbery in the Bronx, the NYPD said. A manhunt was launched for two suspects.

The wounds didn’t appear to be life-threatening but the officers were undergoing surgery at St. Barnabas Hospital, a police official said. One officer was shot in the elbow while the other was struck in the back, police said.

The shooting, which came a day after the burial of an officer slain in the line of duty, happened near the intersection of East 184th Street and Tiebout Avenue just after 10:30 p.m., police said. “It looks like it was a robbery,” said a police official at the scene.

A police helicopter could be seen patrolling above the shooting scene, and area residents said police appeared to conducting an intense investigation in the area.

Emily Ramos, a 29-year-old secretary who lives nearby, said she heard two loud booms around 10:30 p.m.

“It sounded like a bomb,” Ms. Ramos said. “It was an extremely loud explosion. A big bang. It was really loud. There was more than one. It was one, then it sounded like more.”

Bernard Arias, 47, who lives in a first-floor home nearby, said it sounded as if two guns fired. “The first two [shots] sounded like a bomb: baboom, baboom,” Mr. Arias said. “And then I heard pop, pop, pop. It was about six altogether.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority interrupted subway service in the area while police investigated. A spokesman said trains were bypassing 183rd Street on the 4 and D lines.

The shootings come a little more than two weeks after two officers were fatally shot in an ambush on their patrol car. That gunman, who cited the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police, took his own life.

One of those officers, Wenjian Liu, 32 years old, was buried after a funeral on Sunday. The other, Officer Rafael Ramos, was buried on Dec. 27.

The area of Monday night’s shooting is patrolled by the 46th Precinct and has largely become safer, though some crime categories have risen in recent years. Major crime has dropped by almost 80% over the past two decades, according to police department statistics, though murders, rapes and burglaries have risen this year from 2013.

No comments: