An NYPD officer was shot in the arm in Brownsville Thursday afternoon by a suspect who remains at large.
The incident occurred on Legion Street near Pitkin Avenue, near Zion Triangle Park, at around 4:30 p.m. NYPD brass say two officers from the 73rd precinct, driving a marked department car, were driving westbound on Pitkin when suddenly, a number of gunshots rang out, smashing through the driver-side door of the cruiser and leaving the officer driving with a bullet wound in the arm.
Police say that the officers chased the suspect down Legion Street, but lost sight of him after he ducked into a nearby courtyard; police are still searching for the culprit. Police recovered a 9mm handgun on Legion Street.
The officer was taken to Kings County Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. “We are so grateful that he is going to be okay,” said NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell at a press conference outside the central Brooklyn medical hub.
Police presently believe that the cops were not the intended targets of the gunfire, but rather that the perp sought to shoot at a white vehicle nearby, which they missed.
The officer is the seventh NYPD cop to sustain gunshot wounds in the line of duty this year, according to Gun Violence Archive, and the first in Brooklyn. The incident comes about five months after NYPD Officers Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora were assassinated in Harlem.
The incident also comes the same day that the US Supreme Court struck down New York’s rigorous standards for concealed gun licensing, portending far higher numbers of people packing in the near future.
“Today, out of all the other decisions, the Supreme Court hands down a decision that basically states our job is going to get harder,” Mayor Eric Adams said at the hospital press conference. “Too many guns on our streets, with too many bad people returning to our streets to do bad things to innocent people.”
