Metro

On-duty NYPD officer shot in the Bronx

An on-duty NYPD officer has been hospitalized after being shot while sitting with his partner in their marked patrol van in the Bronx Saturday night — and the suspected gunman was still being sought Sunday morning.

The unprovoked attack on the two eight-year veteran officers — at around 8:30 p.m. at East 163rd and Fox streets, near the Hunts Point Avenue subway station — left the injured cop with graze wounds to his chin and neck, officials said.

“By the grace of God, we are here talking about an officer that will be going home,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said at a press conference held shortly before midnight, noting that a bullet had come dangerously close to hitting the officer’s carotid artery.

“Let me be very clear: this was an assassination attempt of two New York city police officers,” the top cop said.





“It is a miracle we are not here under worse circumstances,” he added, calling the injured cop “lucky to be alive.”

The wounded hero remained in Lincoln Hospital overnight, and was expected to make a full recovery, officials said.

Meanwhile, police continued a massive manhunt operation in the Hunts Point neighborhood.

Two helicopters circled overhead throughout the night, shining searchlights into the streets below. Officers canvassed building to building and shone flashlights under cars.

“This police department will use all its resources to make sure we bring this person to justice,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said at the press conference.

Sources told The Post that the victim and his partner, whose names are being withheld, had been sitting on patrol in an NYPD van — with their turret lights flashing red and blue — when the suspect walked up to them and asked to confirm a building address.





The officers saw the man was holding a gun, which was pointed down toward the pavement, law enforcement sources said.

They tried to speed away, but as they did, the man leveled his weapon and began firing at the moving van, the sources said, striking the officer at the wheel at least once.

Though bleeding from his chin and neck, the injured cop managed to steer the van safely around the corner and stop, so that he and his partner could switch seats, officials said. The partner then sped off to nearby Lincoln Hospital.





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“I just want to say his partner as well as him were heroic about how they handled the situation, and his partner, as far as getting him into the hospital in short order,” the commissioner said.





“It was a phenomenal job, keeping their cool.”

The two partners have known each other since middle school, Shea said, adding, “It’s an amazing story.”

The incident was chillingly reminiscent of the 2014 assassination of officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, who were randomly shot dead by a cop-hating Maryland man while sitting in their marked police car in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

“This is nothing that engenders anything but the worst memories,” Shea told reporters Saturday night, mentioning Liu, Ramos and other police assassinations.

Mayor de Blasio joined in calling the shooting an attempted assassination.

“Out in the open, an individual walked up to a police van with the intention of killing police officers,” the mayor said. “This is absolutely unacceptable, in this city or any place in this country or anywhere in this world.”





Additional reporting by Alex Taylor and Tina Moore





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