FBI terrorism investigators have joined NY police looking into possible extremist ties of a man who shot two city police officers early Saturday in Brooklyn, law enforcement officials said. NYPD Commissioner William Bratton said the officers were shot just before 3:20 a.m. near Malcolm X Boulevard and Lexington Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant. One officer was struck in his bulletproof vest and suffered blunt force trauma.
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Two New York City police officers are in stable condition after they were shot in Brooklyn.
Both officers are in stable condition at Kings Country Hospital in Brooklyn, according to a police spokesman.
Bratton said the suspect is a 34-year-old, likely from New Jersey, named Jamal Funes. Officials said the other shooting victim was transported to Brookdale Hospital. The investigation is ongoing. “He is in a unit that focuses on taking guns off the streets, and that’s all he’s dedicated to doing”, Reddin-Eliou said Saturday. Officers fired at Funes and struck him several times.
The NYPD identified the injured officers as William Reddin and Andrew Yurkiw. He said police were trying to determine what might have prompted Funes’ conduct. Images released by police from surveillance video show the gunman – wearing an ankle-length, white garment – on a crosswalk taking aim and firing at the patrol auto at close range.
“This incident certainly underscored the importance of the vests that we invest in for our police officers and how we have to keep them safe in every way we can”, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
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Officers had heard gunfire and as they approached Funes, he pointed a revolver and fled. The suspect fired from his vehicle and hit the two officers in their vehicle, Bratton said. Funes, driving down the street in the wrong direction, rammed a responding patrol auto, and gunfire was exchanged, police said.
