NEW YORK — The relative of an off-duty New York police officer shot in the head and critically wounded in a Brooklyn Facebook Marketplace robbery grabbed the wounded officer’s gun and fired back at the assailant, police sources said Sunday.
The manhunt continued Sunday afternoon for the robber who shot the 26-year-old officer in East New York at about 7 p.m. Saturday. Meanwhile, the officer’s family and fellow cops kept vigil at Brookdale University Hospital, hoping he pulls through.
The officer and his relative, described as either a brother or brother-in-law, were planning to buy a Honda Pilot for $20,000 through Facebook Marketplace, sources said.
But when they got to Ruby Street near Linden Boulevard in East New York a man told them to come with him toward an alley. The seller pulled a gun and when the officer went for his own weapon the man fired six times, sources said.
The off-duty officer’s relative then grabbed the wounded cop’s weapon and returned fire five times — but apparently didn’t hit the man, sources said.
One witness, who didn’t give his name, described the chaos. “They ran between the houses shooting,” he said. “I heard nine or 10 shots. They ran toward Dumont Street shooting at each other. It was a gunfight.”
The robber drove off north on Ruby St. then turned right on S. Conduit Avenue, sources said.
The officer, shot in the head, was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital in critical condition.
It’s not clear if the suspect was riding with an accomplice, and the relative was too shaken up to notice which side of the vehicle the shooter got into, sources said.
The shooter did not get away with the off-duty officer’s money, and the relative was unhurt, sources said.
“It’s horrible, he has two kids. He has two boys,” said Iffat Munir, whose brother-in-law is the officer’s New York Police Department partner. “It’s heartbreaking.”
“I just met him a few times,” he said of the wounded officer. “He’s a good guy.”
The officer, is Pakistani American and early Sunday the Pakistani American Law Enforcement Society posted about the shooting on its Facebook page.
“We need everyone prayers in this difficult time,” the group posted. “May allah (swt) grant him full and fast recovery,” the group posted.
The shooter is described as a bearded Black man wearing a black sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. He fled in a black vehicle with tinted windows, police sources said.
Police were also looking into whether the robbery was linked to a similar stickup in the area from last month, sources said.
The shooting came a little over a year after two police officers, Wilbert Mora and Jason Rivera, were killed on Jan. 21, 2022, by a shooter armed with a Glock handgun outfitted with a drum magazine that let him quickly fire more than two dozen bullets. The officers were responding to a domestic disturbance in Harlem.
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(With Mark Stamey.)
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