Two officers wounded in targeted Bronx shootings

NEW YORK— He first shot at two police officers in a van after having asked them for directions.

Then, less than 12 hours later, police said, the man entered a precinct in the Bronx and began shooting, hitting one officer and injuring another.

By the end of the rampage Sunday morning, two officers were wounded and a third was injured, and the department was shaken.

“This is not a crime gone bad. This is not a liquor store robbery interrupted,” police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Sunday. “This is a premeditated assassination attempt.”

The shooting spree touched off a political firestorm about policing in New York, bringing into question the circumstances that allowed the man, whom two police officials identified as Robert Williams, to attack the officers. Williams, 45, has a lengthy criminal history and was out on parole after a conviction for attempted murder, stemming from a 2002 incident where he engaged in a gun battle with officers, police said.

In surveillance video, a man, who police said was Williams, is seen entering the 41st Precinct around 8 a.m. Sunday. He almost immediately opened fire. One bullet struck the arm of a lieutenant, who returned fire, but missed. The man paused, appeared to hear returning gunshots, and then lay on the ground, sliding his gun to officers. Williams was taken into custody at the precinct.

Just 12 hours earlier, at around 8 p.m. Saturday, police said, Williams had approached two officers in a marked police vehicle a few blocks from that same station house. Williams spoke with the officers and then asked for directions before pulling out a gun and opening fire into the vehicle, striking one officer in the chin and the neck, just missing his carotid artery, police said.