‘Assassination’ bid as gunman attacks police patrol van then shoots up station

A GUNMAN walked into a police station in the Bronx and started shooting, wounding an officer just hours after he had shot another one in a patrol van.

The same gunman was responsible for the back-to-back shootings, New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said.

The gunman walked into the 41st precinct station shortly before 8am and fired off a handgun.

A male officer was shot once in the upper arm and returned fire but did not hit the suspect.

“For the second time in less than 12 hours, NYPD officers have been targeted specifically,” Mr Shea said.

He described the suspect as a “coward” and said the gunman lay down on the floor once he had run out of bullets.

The suspect, whose name has not been released, was taken into custody. He has a lengthy rap sheet and was paroled from prison in 2017 after an attempted murder conviction, Mr Shea said.

“This is not a crime gone bad,” he said. “This is not a liquor store robbery interrupted that a tragedy erupts from. This is a premeditated assassination attempt.” The shooting inside the precinct headquarters came just hours after an attack in the same section of the Bronx involving the same suspect.

Two officers narrowly escaped with their lives when the gunman fired into their patrol van just before 8.30pm.

The officer at the wheel was grazed in the chin and neck but avoided serious injury.

Mr Shea said the attack “should outrage all New Yorkers”.

“He is lucky to be alive,” Mr Shea added. “He is expected to make a full recovery and it is a miracle.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a tweet yesterday that he was “horrified by the multiple attacks” on police.

“NY’S law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe,” he said. “These attacks are heinous.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned the back-to-back attacks.

“This was an attempt to assassinate police officers,” he said. “We need to use that word.”

President Donald Trump immediately used the shootings to assail New York’s Democratic mayor and governor.

The two uniformed officers, partners for eight years, were sitting in their van with emergency lights activated when a man approached them and engaged them in conversation, Mr Shea said.

The man asked the officers for directions, then pulled out a gun “without provocation,” the commissioner said, and fired multiple shots. Neither officer returned fire. The officer’s partner drove him to a hospital nearby.

The officers had been stationed in the neighbourhood because of recent drug activity and violence, Mr Shea said.