‘Thank God I’m not worse,’ says bystander shot amid cop chase

To Henry Massop, a bystander who was wounded during a police shooting in Brooklyn, every breath from here on out is a blessing.

“I could have passed away,” Massop, 60, told the Daily News from his hospital bed Tuesday. “Thank God I’m not worse.”

Massop was working at an auto shop near the corner of Remsen Ave. and E. 57th St. in East Flatbush on Monday evening when gunman Nathan Scott began firing at a man and a woman.

“He was running and saying something, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying,” said Massop.

In the mad moments that followed, NYPD officers showed up in an unmarked car and fired at Scott, killing him.

“Just as I came out of the car to get a tool out of my toolbox, I heard ‘Pow! Pow!’ ” Massop recounted. “I said, What happened?”

The bullets knocked Massop to the ground. A moment later, Scott fell onto the concrete sidewalk right next to him.

“After I get shot, the same cop walks up to me,” said Massop, who lives in Jersey City. “[The officers] say, ‘Stand up! Don’t sit down in the car!’ ”

The cops told him to stand so his blood could keep circulating. They also asked him to lean against the car he was working on as an ambulance arrived.

“My body was heavy — burning, burning,” said Massop, describing the pain. “[The bullets] went through the side and go through and the next one lodged in the arm. [One is] poking out through the back already.”

For a split second, Massop thought the cops charging down the block with their guns out were after him. But he quickly realized they had Scott in their sights.

“[When I saw Scott], I was happy,” Massop said. “They were trying to take the guy with a gun. He was running with the gun in his hand.”

Investigators believe Massop was hit by a police bullet, but were awaiting the results of ballistics tests to be sure.

Scott, who was shooting at a man who had just tried to rob him, was rushed to Kings County Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved.

The would-be mugger, Jeremiah Adams, was arrested for an unrelated robbery earlier this month in which the victim was shot in the neck and chest, cops said.

Massop is pretty sure responding officers shot him, but he said he’s not resentful.

“I know it was an accident,” he said. “I got shot, but honestly, they did a good job. The response of the cops was super. I was really happy. They make sure they took [Scott] off the road.

“I’m not feeling too good, but it could have been worse.”