BLOODY B'KLYN BUST
Cop shot hauling in pistol-packing felon
A career criminal shot and wounded one of the three NYPD detectives trying to arrest him Friday morning on a warrant for armed robbery, officials said.
The ex-con, Kelvin Stichel, was also wounded when the cops returned fire, and he was busted a short time later because he left a trail of blood leading to a nearby Brooklyn apartment, law-enforcement sources said.
The Brooklyn North Warrant Squad cops were traveling through Bedford-Stuyvesant in an unmarked car when they spotted Stichel, 33, walking along Fulton Street in the opposite direction at about 6:40 a.m.
Stichel took off running when he saw the cops make a U-turn, and they chased him in the car and on foot, catching up on Decatur Street, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said.
When the cops ordered him to show his hands, Stichel allegedly pulled a pistol and unleashed six rounds, one of which hit Detective Miguel Soto, 32, in the upper right thigh.
Soto and the other cops fired back, hitting Stichel in the right forearm as he ran away from the gunfight, O’Neill said.
A search of the area turned up a trail of blood that led cops to 39 Kingston Ave., where O’Neill said Stichel was busted in a hallway.
Cops found a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun in a trash can outside the building, sources said.
Soto’s wound was described by O’Neill as “in and out,” and he was released Friday afternoon from Kings County Hospital.
The cop, who’s married to a fellow NYPD officer, held his 2-yearold son in his lap as he was escorted out, then stood up from his wheelchair and walked to a waiting van without assistance.
In 2016, Soto was awarded the NYPD Medal of Valor for shooting a gunman who fired shots while chasing two men past a Brooklyn playground before turning and aiming at Soto.
Stichel was treated at Brookdale Hospital, where a photo exclusively obtained by The Post showed him unconscious and handcuffed to a bed in the ER’s major-trauma section.
Charges against him were pending.
Stichel was wanted for a March 13 incident where he allegedly held a gun to the head of girlfriend Tarnita Jacobs, with whom he has been involved in 14 domestic incidents, sources said.
Stichel allegedly forced Jacobs into a bedroom of her apartment, then stole clothes from a closet.
Detectives tried to arrest him at Jacobs’ apartment last month, but she allegedly attacked the cops with pepper spray, after which she and Stichel escaped.
Stichel has served three stints in state prison, including two years between 2002 and 2004 for attempted robbery in Westchester and from 2009-2010 for a Brooklyn drug-possession charge.
He was locked up again, in 2012, for violating parole in the drug case and sprung in 2014.
His rap sheet also lists a slew of arrests including for allegedly assaulting a cop in February 2016.
The head of the Detectives’ Endowment Association described Stichel as part of a “Bonnie and Clyde” team “who did not want to be caught, so he didn’t hesitate to fire at our detectives.”
“They are all extremely lucky to be alive,” DEA President Michael Palladino said of the three officers in the shootout.
“Especially Detective Soto, whose leg wound missed being fatal by millimeters.”