Police Officer Is Shot in Gunfight in Manhattan

James C. McKinley Jr. and Ali Winston

April 19, 2019 3:02 AM

NEW YORK — A plainclothes officer was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with an armed man in Upper Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, police said. The man was fatally shot.

The shooting occurred about 4:20 p.m. at a paid parking lot on Broadway near West 187th Street, in the Washington Heights neighborhood, witnesses said.

The officer, who was not immediately identified, was taken to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital with a flesh wound to his arm, the police said. He was in stable condition and was expected to survive.

The wounded officer’s partner shot the gunman in the chest, killing him, the police said. An early report that there were two gunmen turned out to be incorrect.

On Thursday evening, dozens of officers combed through the parking lot, which is sandwiched between two buildings on the east side of Broadway, looking for evidence.

Jorge Ozuna, 65, said he was walking nearby when he heard shots ring out. “It came from inside a parking lot,” Ozuna said. “A lot of police officers came running with guns in their hands.”

A few minutes later, he said, the wounded officer was carried away by two other officers.

“He seemed alert, conscious,” Ozuna said. “He was touching his hurt arm.”

The Rev. Ambiorix Rodriguez, at the nearby St. Elizabeth Church on Wadsworth Avenue, said he was inside preparing for his next Mass when he began getting messages about the gunshots and the wounded officer.

“As soon as I heard, I began praying for him,” he said. “We have had some shootings here recently.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

James C. McKinley Jr. and Ali Winston