Harlem teen faces assault charge in Jan. 1 gunfire that cracked NYPD cop’s skull a half-mile away; ‘Glad to be alive,’ says officer
A Harlem gunman whose random celebratory New Year’s Day gunshot fractured a cop’s skull a half-mile away has been charged with assault, reckless endangerment and weapons possession, police said Thursday.
The suspect, a 17-year-old whose name was not released because of his age, was picked up at a Queens juvenile facility where he was being held in an unrelated case.
The victim, Officer Keith Wagenhauser, appeared Thursday at a One Police Plaza press conference.
“Hello, everybody,” he said to reporters. “I’m feeling pretty good. Just glad to be alive and here before you people.”
Wagenhauser is on restricted duty as he recovers. He was not targeted in the shooting, said police.
The officer, a seven-year veteran, worked a New Year’s Eve shift last Dec. 31. then opted to sleep in his personal car in the E. 119th St. parking lot outside the 25th Precinct stationhouse in East Harlem until his 7 a.m. tour on New Year’s Day.
Around 6:15 a.m., police said, a .45-caliber bullet shattered his car’s rear passenger window. Wagenhauser felt blood dripping from a painful head wound.
The officer was taken to New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he underwent surgery to remove a fragment from his fractured skull.
He was released a day later.
The investigation into who shot Wagenhauser began with a search of ShotSpotter data, Chief of Detectives James Essig said. ShotSpotter is a system that listens for gunfire throughout the city.
The NYPD asked ShotSpotter operators to search their system for a noise that may not have been immediately identified by the company’s technology.
Sure enough, Essig said, ShotSpotter found such a noise, pinpointing a gunshot at 21 seconds past 6:14 a.m. fired a half-mile away from W. 112th St. between Fifth Ave. and Malcolm X Blvd. in Harlem, at the King Towers NYCHA development.
Police went looking for surveillance cameras and found footage of someone at that building “visibly loading a firearm and racking it,” Essig said.
A .45-caliber shell casing was found on the building roof and witnesses told police they had seen the suspect on the roof.
Later, on Aug. 27, Anthony Martinez, 20, was arrested in the Bronx on a gun possession charge, records show.
When Martinez refused to answer any questions, police matched the gun’s ballistics to the casing found on the roof of the King Towers building, Essig said.
The case was presented to a grand jury on Dec. 14, and the teen suspect was indicted on Monday. The teen’s relationship to Martinez was unclear.
“This was an exhaustive investigation,” Essig said.
The suspect has several prior robbery arrests, a police source said.
Ten cops have been shot this year in nine incidents, including officers Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora, who were killed in late January by a domestic violence suspect in Harlem.
