This Article is From Dec 21, 2014

2 New York Officers Are Fatally Shot; Suspect Is Dead

2 New York Officers Are Fatally Shot; Suspect Is Dead

Investigators work at the scene where two NYPD officers were shot, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2014. (Associated Press)

New York: In an apparent targeted killing, two police officers were shot in their patrol car in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon by a man who had shot his girlfriend earlier that day in Baltimore, law enforcement officials said. The man then fled to a nearby subway station and fatally shot himself in the head.

The shootings come at a time when the city is roiled by demonstrations after a grand jury decided not to indict an officer in the chokehold death of a Staten Island man.

The fatal ambush Saturday took place near Myrtle and Tompkins avenues.

"It looks like they were shot in the upper body," Deputy Chief Kim Royster said.

Royster said the man opened fire on the officers, ran up Myrtle and went into a subway station. The man later died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, she said. The police had recovered a gun from the scene.

A high-ranking law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss a continuing investigation said that the man had shot his girlfriend in the stomach in Baltimore on Saturday morning. Her condition is unclear.

In Brooklyn, Fire Department officials said that a 911 call came in around 2:50 p.m. reporting that two people had been shot.

Charlie Hu, the manager of a liquor store at the corner near the shooting, said he saw two police officers slouched over in the front seat of their patrol car. At least one of the officers, Hu said, appeared to have been shot in the head.

The high-ranking police official called the shooting an assassination.

"He walked up to the car, fired several shots," the official said.

"They were sitting in the car. He approached from behind, opened fire and clearly his intent was to assassinate them."

At the scene of the shooting, Andy Jordan, 39, who lives nearby, said tensions were high in the neighborhood.

"We need to look at how we got here," he said.

The last New York City officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty was Peter Figoski, in 2011.
© 2014, The New York Times News Service
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