Three New York City police officers were recovering Friday morning after being shot Thursday night in two separate encounters, including one at a Brooklyn subway station that left a gunman dead.
It was one of the bloodiest nights for the Police Department in recent years and led to renewed calls from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for the nation to revisit its gun laws.
“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,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “But sometimes the good guys get shot.”
The shootings on Thursday night occurred within an hour of each other.
In the second shooting, just after 7:30 p.m., two transit officers, Michael Lavay, 27, and Lukasz Kozicki, 32, witnessed a man moving between cars on a Coney Island-bound N train at the Fort Hamilton Parkway station, according to a police account.
The officers removed their shields from under their bulletproof vests and approached the man, asking him for identification and intending to escort him off the crowded subway car.
As they approached, the man reached into his waistband, and the officers thought he was going to remove his wallet.
“Instead, he pulled a 9-millimeter Taurus handgun from his waistband and opened fire,” said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.
Officer Kozicki was struck three times — once in each of his upper thighs and once in the groin, the police said.
Officer Lavay was shot in the back but his vest prevented serious injury, said Paul J. Browne, the chief police spokesman. Officer Lavay returned fire with seven bullets and killed the man. The man, who has not been identified, landed with his feet on the platform and his body on the train, the police said.
In the chaos, as passengers ran screaming from the train and dived for cover, one bystander was lightly injured by a bullet, the police said.
Both officers were in stable condition at Lutheran Medical Center on Friday morning.
Earlier on Thursday, around 6:30 p.m., four men, one with a gun, approached a car dealership on Boston Road in the Allerton section of the Bronx owned by the family of Officer Juan Pichardo, 34, and announced a robbery, the police said.
Officer Pichardo, who was off duty, and another employee were approached by two men who feigned an interest in buying a red Altima. But instead of talking car details, one of the men produced a Bryco .380 handgun and forced Officer Pichardo and the other employee into a small back office.
“They began to ransack the office, looking for cash and the safe, all the while brandishing the weapon in Officer Pichardo’s face,” Mr. Kelly said. As the robbers were finishing up, Mr. Kelly said, “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.”
The gunman was arrested, as were three accomplices who fled in a car but were soon stopped by the police. Officer Pichardo was taken to Jacobi Medical Center. His wounds were not considered life-threatening.
In 2012, the police said, 11 New York City police officers were shot while on duty, and one while off duty. None of the shootings were fatal. In 2011, three officers were shot, and one died.
“The historic crime reductions that New Yorkers enjoy come at a price,” Mr. Kelly said. “A dozen police officers were shot last year. And now three more, in the first three days of the new year.”
For Mr. Bloomberg, it was further evidence that the nation’s gun laws were failing.
“Tonight, thank God, three good guys – three New York City police officers, who acted heroically – are going to make it,” an emotional Mr. Bloomberg said on Thursday. “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.”
Following the night’s violence, other local politicians joined him in his calls for reform.
“This is another reminder of how hard we have to work on a nationwide level to keep illegal guns out of New York City,” Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., chairman of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, said Thursday.
After the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., there was a renewed focus on gun laws. And as students returned to school Thursday for the first time since that attack, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy also sought to bring the issue of guns back to the forefront.
“You don’t need a 30-round clip to go hunting, and you don’t need a 30-round clip to honor the Constitution of the United States, and I think it’s time we had a realistic discussion about the weapons that are being used time and time again in these mass casualty situations,” Governor Malloy told reporters on Thursday. “I mean, it would be stupid not to have that conversation.”
3 New York Police Officers Recovering After Shootings
This article
3 New York Police Officers Recovering After Shootings
can be opened in url
https://lightningnewster.blogspot.com/2013/01/3-new-york-police-officers-recovering.html
3 New York Police Officers Recovering After Shootings
