Video by Anthony DePrimo

By MAURA GRUNLUND

and KYLE LAWSON



STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The NYPD is investigating the death of a 31-year-old man from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in Annadale on Tuesday morning.

The South Shore man was a dedicated police officer who lived with family, according to a former neighbor.

"He loved being a cop," former neighbor Richie Manzi told the Advance.

The Annadale resident had an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the neck when police responded to a residence on Dorval Avenue, according to a spokeswoman for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

According to emergency radio transmissions and a source at the scene, the man was a police officer. He was assigned to the 120th Precinct, according to Manzi and the New York Daily News.

The NYPD declined to confirm that the victim was a police officer or to release his identity pending notification of next of kin.

EMS transported a person in critical condition to Staten Island University Hospital in Prince's Bay in response to a call at 4:52 a.m. of a gunshot victim on Dorval Avenue, said a spokesman for the FDNY/EMS.

The victim was pronounced dead at the hospital, an NYPD spokesman said.

Manzi said that the man had served a few years in the 120 Precinct based in St. George.

He lived with his mother and father and all were friendly, hard-working people and good neighbors, according to Manzi.

"He always used to ask how I was feeling, if I ever needed anything" Manzi said of the victim. "What a great person."

Manzi added that the 31-year-old man "was always very happy" and "never seemed like anything was wrong."

A man who looked to be in his 30s stopped briefly at the house, but declined to comment. Neighbors said they often would see the two men on the front porch -- one dressed in his police uniform and the other wearing medical scrubs.

A neighbor who declined to have her name used wondered why such a tragedy would occur in what she described as a quiet family on a peaceful block.