Shot at twice by gunman, NYC police say
Protesters’ words spurred attacks, say mayor, others
NEW YORK — A man was taken into custody Sunday after police said he ambushed police officers in the Bronx twice in 12 hours, wounding two in attacks that ignited anger from officials who blamed the violence on an atmosphere of anti-police rhetoric.
Local officials called the shootings “assassination attempts.” The suspect was arrested at the 41st Precinct station house after he had walked in just before 8 a.m. and began firing, hitting one officer and injuring another,
police officials said.
That attack came just hours after the same man ap- proached a patrol van in the same part of the Bronx late Saturday and fired at two officers inside, wounding one before escaping on foot, po- lice said.
Robert Williams, 45, is being charged with attempted murder, criminal weapon possession and resisting arrest, police said in an email late Sunday identifying him as the suspect. He was hospitalized Sunday evening, the Bronx prosecutor’s office said. It wasn’t clear whether he had an attorney to speak for him.
Despite multiple shots fired in both incidents, nobody was killed, and all are expected to recover, police said.
“It is only by the grace of God and the heroic actions of those inside the building that took him into custody that we are not talking about police officers murdered inside a New York City police precinct,” Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said at a news conference Sunday.
Police said they were questioning a woman in connection to the shootings but she was not a suspect.
The officer injured in the first shooting, Paul Stroffolino, was released from the hospital Sunday to applause from a sizable contingent of fellow officers. The officer, a bandage visible on his neck, gave a thumbs-up to the crowd.
“This was an attempt to assassinate police officers,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “We need to use that word because it was a premeditated effort to kill. And not just to kill other human beings, but to kill those who wear a uniform that represents all of us.”
New York City, he said, is a “place where everyone can live in peace and decency and mutual respect.”
“This individual attempted to destroy that,” de Blasio said. “Thank God he was stopped by our men and women in uniform.”
Shea said that in Sunday’s shooting, the man, entered the station house, pulled out a gun and started firing multiple rounds toward the desk area. Then he walked into an area beside the desk and fired multiple rounds at police officers. A male lieutenant was shot in the upper left arm, the commissioner said.
Surveillance footage posted on social media shows an officer ducking for cover. Seconds later, a man is seen falling to the ground. A handgun slides across the floor, then officers swarm him.
“This coward immediately laid down, but only after he ran out of bullets,” Shea said.
A 9mm gun was recovered from the suspect and will be tested to see if it matches the gun used in Saturday’s shooting, Shea said.
According to police officials and court documents, Williams had been convicted of attempted murder as a result of a shooting in 2002. Williams shot someone, carjacked a woman in trying to flee the scene, wrecked the stolen vehicle and then engaged responding officers in a gunbattle, police said. He was convicted of attempted murder, but released on parole in 2017.
The commissioner also lashed out at activists who have held demonstrations against excessive force by police in recent months, including a large protest in Grand Central Terminal. He suggested the protests helped create an anti-police environment.
“These things are not unrelated. We had people marching through the streets of New York City recently,” Shea said. “Words matter. And words affect people’s behavior.”
Shea didn’t offer any evidence that the gunman in this weekend’s attacks knew of those protests or was influenced by them.
De Blasio, who won office partly on a promise to overhaul overly aggressive policing of minority communities, also suggested that anti-police sentiment had gotten out of hand.
“Anyone who spews hatred at our officers is aiding and abetting this kind of atmosphere; it is not acceptable,” de Blasio said. “You could protest for whatever you believe in, but you cannot vilely attack those who are here to protect us. It creates this kind of dynamic.”
The attacks recalled other unprovoked assaults on police officers sitting in their patrol vehicles.
In 2017, a gunman killed officer Miosotis Familia as she sat in her patrol vehicle in the Bronx. In 2014, two officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were shot dead in their patrol car in Brooklyn by a man upset about recent police killings of unarmed black men.
The killings of Ramos and Liu also occurred after large street protests and some officers blamed de Blasio for expressing solidarity with the demonstrations, and turned their backs on the Democrat at the funerals.
Robert Gangi, executive director of the Police Reform Organizing Project advocacy group, said it was “irresponsible” for Shea and de Blasio to say the violence this weekend was linked to the recent demonstrations, which he said involved activists “protesting in a legitimate fashion.”
Of the gunman, though, Gangi said there is “no defense for a lunatic who opens fire on police.”
The first attack happened just before 8:30 p.m. Saturday, when the gunman walked up to the van asking the officers for directions and then fired shots, grazing Stroffolino, who was behind the wheel, in the chin and neck and narrowly missing an artery.
Stroffolino and his partner for eight years, Brian Hanlon, a friend since middle school, hit the gas to get away. Neither fired a shot.
The commissioner said the officers had been posted in the neighborhood because there had been reports of drug dealing and shootings there recently.
Police released a photograph of the suspected shooter and were combing the city for him when he walked into the police station coordinating the manhunt, strolled to the desk and pulled a gun. The wounded lieutenant returned fire but missed, and police personnel dashed out of an adjoining room just in time to avoid the pursuing gunman. Two security cameras captured video of the chaotic scene.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a tweet Sunday 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 wrote. “These attacks are heinous.”
President Donald Trump immediately used the shootings to assail New York’s Democratic mayor and governor.
“I grew up in New York City and, over many years, got to watch how GREAT NYC’s ‘Finest’ are. Now, because of weak leadership at Governor & Mayor, stand away (water thrown at them) regulations, and lack of support, our wonderful NYC police are under assault. Stop this now!” he tweeted.
The attacks happened in the Bronx’s 41st Precinct, a once crime-plagued district whose former headquarters was infamously branded “Fort Apache” and was the subject of a 1981 film starring Paul Newman.
In recent years, though, the neighborhood has gotten much safer. There were five killings reported in all of last year and 164 robberies, down from 44 killings and 1,095 robberies in 1990.
Information for this article was contributed by Sophia Rosenbaum and Deepti Hajela of The Associated Press; by Elisha Brown, Michael Levenson and Ali Watkins of The New York Times; and by Katie Mettler of The Washington Post.