The Police Department won’t release information about an officer who it has reportedly stripped of his gun and placed on desk duty after his service weapon was used to shoot a would-be mugger who allegedly held up the cop and his cousin in Park Slope on Tuesday.
An anonymous source within the department and multiple media reports say the patrolman — who works in Crown Heights’ 71st Precinct — and his kin were at Prospect Place and Sixth Avenue after leaving a Flatbush Avenue watering hole at around 12:30 am, when two gunmen approached them.
The cop’s cousin then grabbed the weapon and started blasting — firing at least three shots and striking one of the assailants in the left leg — and the wounded robber limped into Methodist Hospital about a half-hour later claiming a stray bullet struck him, before investigators found him there and arrested him, the source said.
Police are investigating the officer internally, and he could face additional disciplinary charges for not security his weapon properly, the source said.
But the Office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information refused to provide this paper with any official information about what happened other than that a 32-year man walked into Methodist Hospital at around 1 am with a gunshot wound, and that they later arrested a Prospect-Lefferts Gardens man — not specifically the same man — and charged him for robbery and criminal possession of a weapon.
It also said its “Force Investigation Division” — which investigates officer-involved shootings — is looking into “the incident,” but not who that officer is or anything about the shooting itself.
The alleged details of the shooting and its aftermath have been reported extensively by the Post, Daily News, and DNA Info — all also relying on inside sources — though have changed considerably and without explanation through multiple retellings.
Early reports said the patrolman shot the mugger himself. In subsequent versions, his cousin grabbed the gun from the cop’s “holster.” Now, reports say the cousin took it from the “locked trunk” of the officer’s car.
