Yesterday, three police officers were shot in two separate incidents in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Mayor Bloomberg, who visited the officers (who are all expected to recover), said, “In recent weeks, we've heard some people say that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But sometimes the good guys get shot—and sometimes, they are killed."
Last night in Brooklyn around 7:30 p.m., Officers Michael Levay and Lukasz Kozicki were aboard a Manhattan-bound N train when they noticed a man traveling between subway cars and told him it was not allowed. The man sat down in a car and the police asked him for identification. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explained that they were going to take him off the train at the next stop (Fort Hamilton Parkway), "The male stood up as if to comply with the officers, and appeared to reach for his wallet. Instead, he pulled a 9-millimeter Taurus handgun from his waistband and opened fire. Officer Kozicki, 32, was struck three times; once in each of his upper thighs and once in the groin."
Kelly said, "A witness said that the gunman appeared to notice the officer’s bullet-resistant vest, and, as a result, aimed low before he fired." Levay, 27, who was shot in his lower back (and protected by his vest), fired back at the shooter, killing him. Most passengers ran out of the train car during the gunfire; one passenger did suffer a graze wound. One passenger told the Daily News, "People were running into the car and I didn’t know if the gunman was running with them, so I laid flat under the bench."
The NY Times reports, "The gunman, whose name was not immediately released, landed with his feet on the platform and his body on the train, the police said. He had at least five previous arrests, including one for 'assault with a knife,' Mr. Browne said." Bloomberg said, "Tough enforcement of quality of life crimes on the subway—the work that these officers were engaged in—is a big part of how we've made New York the safest big city in the nation, and how we've dramatically cut crime on the subways and across the city."
In the other shooting around 6:30 p.m., off-duty officer Juan Pichardo was working at his family's car dealership in the Allerton section of the Bronx, when two men entered, pretending to be interested in a car. Then the men announced it was a robbery, with one man showing a Bryco .380 gun (two other men were in a getaway car). Kelly said that they forced Pichardo, who was not armed, and another employee into a back room, "A few minutes after the robbery, Officer Pichardo stood up and grabbed the gunman, who fired, striking the officer in the right thigh. Despite being wounded, Officer Pichardo and the other employee wrestled the gunman to the ground and disarmed him." While Pichardo and the other employee held the shooter, Kelly added, "The gunman’s accomplice fled with the two others in the getaway car, a white Impala with Oregon license plates."
Responding officers arrived, and it turned out the gunman was part of a robbery crew. Other officers found the getaway car at 183rd Street and Katonah Avenue and arrested the occupants.
Bloomberg said, "Tonight, thank God, three good guys—three New York City police officers, who acted heroically—are going to make it. But we owe it to the good guys to do whatever we can to protect them—just as they do whatever they can to protect us. Instead, Washington is letting the bad guys shoot our police officers, our children, our neighbors—and it just has to stop. Tonight, we’re just grateful that these three officers will be going home to their families."
