NYPD officer killed, another in critical condition after Harlem shooting, police say
One New York City police officer was killed and another was fighting for his life after a gunman opened fire on them in a Harlem apartment Friday, officials said.
The suspect was shot by a third officer and was in critical condition, a police spokesperson said early Saturday.
The officers responded about 6:15 p.m. to a 911 call regarding a woman having a dispute with her son, police said.
When they arrived, the woman and one son were at the front of the apartment. The two officers were shot at without warning when they went down a narrow hallway to the rear bedroom where the suspect was, police said.
“As our first officer approached the bedroom, the door swings open and numerous shots are fired, striking both officers,” Chief of Detectives James Essig said at a news conference at Harlem Hospital.
Officer Jason Rivera, 22, was killed, police said. The injured officer was in critical condition.
The suspect, Lashawn Mcneil, 47, was then shot in the arm and head by a third officer, Essig said.
Rivera and the second officer are the fourth and fifth NYPD officers shot this year.
“I am struggling to find the words to express the tragedy we are enduring. We’re mourning, and we’re angry,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was horrified by the shooting.
“I know that all of New York is standing with these officers and their families,” she said.
A Glock 45 handgun with an extended 40-round magazine was recovered at the scene. The gun was stolen in Baltimore in 2017, police said.
Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD police captain who took office on Jan. 1 and who ran on a pledge to combat gun violence, said the shooting was a crime against all New Yorkers.
“It is our city against the killers,” Adams said. “This was not just an attack on three brave officers, this was an attack on the city of New York. And it’s an attack on the children and families of this city.”
Adams referred to the five officers shot and an 11-month-old girl who was wounded by a stray bullet, and called on the federal government to do more to do more to stop the flow of illegal guns into the city.
“We are not going to live under the gun of dangerous people in New York City,” Adams said.
Four of the five shootings that wounded NYPD officers this year happened this week.
On Thursday, a police detective was shot on Staten Island as police served a warrant in a narcotics investigation; on Tuesday, an officer was struck in the leg in the Bronx during a struggle with an armed suspect; and early Jan. 1, an off-duty officer was shot while sleeping in his car between shifts, officials have said. The three officers survived.
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