BRAVE COP EXITS HOSP
Blue cheer for shooting survivor
The NYPD cop shot by a crazed man in Brooklyn returned home “feeling good” Friday — as police sources revealed his would-be assassin scrawled a final message on the wall before he killed himself.
“I die with a joyful heart,” gunman Andy Sookdeo scribbled in black marker, sources told The Post.
The deranged 29-year-old man also drew a swastika on the wall next to his dark message before fatally shooting himself. It was not known if the swastika was the Nazi symbol or the ancient Sanskrit version.
Sookdeo’s body was discovered inside his Cypress Hills apartment shortly after.
Two guns were found at his side — a .38-caliber revolver and a defaced 380 Hi-Point handgun.
Officer Hart Nguyen, whose life was saved by his bulletproof vest, was released from the hospital Friday to the sounds of applause and bagpipes — just one day after the potentially deadly incident.
About 200 cheering officers were there to greet Nguyen as he walked out of Jamaica Hospital Medical Center after being shot at the gunman’s home.
The injured cop from the 75th Precinct had his right arm in a sling — but gave a thumb’s-up with his left hand and smiled.
Nguyen’s bulletproof vest was able to stop at least two rounds as Sookdeo fired at the officer. The two men were standing inside a dark hallway where the shooter lived with his parents.
Nguyen, a father of two, was also struck in the right arm.
Earlier Friday, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said, “We’re lucky he survived . . . a lot of rounds fired at very close distance,” after checking up on the 30-year-old officer.
“He feels real happy to be alive and to be surrounded by people that love him, and he works in a great place and he works for a great police department,” said O’Neill.
The commissioner added, “We look forward to him making a full recovery.”
Cops say that Sookdeo has no prior criminal history, but does have a history of mental illness.
Nguyen and his partner Korey Brierre were responding to a 911 call on Ridgewood Avenue regarding an emotionally disturbed person Thursday.
As Nguyen approached the bedroom door, Sookdeo popped out and started shoot-
New Yorkers can be thankful that Police Officer Hart Nguyen was discharged from Jamaica Hospital late Friday, just 24 hours after his bulletproof vest saved his life. But the fact that Officer Nguyen took three shots to the chest and another in his arm from a deranged gunman again raises disturbing questions about New York’s ability to handle the seriously mentally ill.
The two-year NYPD veteran and his partner were responding to a 911 call from a woman who said her son, 29, was behaving erratically at their Cypress Hills home. Andy Sookdeo “had a history of psychological issues” and “needed help,” noted Police Commissioner James O’Neill.
An argument with his father had turned physical: Sookdeo smashed a TV set. His mom insisted he was unarmed and nonviolent but also said he was off his medications.
In fact, he had two guns and enough ammo for an extended standoff as he holed up in a bedroom. When Nguyen tried approaching the room, Sookdeo began shooting. (He later killed himself.)
The good news: Nguyen’s vest stopped the bullets aimed at his chest. But the city has seen too many incidents where the NYPD has to deal with a disturbed person who’s turned violent.
On both the state and city levels, government keeps failing to get seriously mentally ill people the help they need they become dangerous. And this latest event underscores yet again the continuing failures, on both the state and city levels, to keep the dangerous mentally ill off the streets — and the unreasonable reliance on the NYPD to handle things when they reach crisis level.
Some 40 percent of New Yorkers with serious mental illness aren’t treated to begin with. Yet the state Assembly this year refused to strengthen Kendra’s Law, which lets courts compel treatment for the dangerously mentally ill. So families regularly find themselves helpless to do anything as serious problems grow.
Let’s hope the politicians wake up soon, not least because the next cop caught up against an armed madman may not be as lucky as Officer Nguyen.