Shot in face
Yonkers officer in Bx. hospital after gunfight
A ROUTINE call to check on a sedan that seemed out of place on a Yonkers street turned into a harrowing gun battle Monday night, with two cops pinned down — one shot through her chin and her partner begging for an armored truck to whisk her to safety.
The wounded officer and her partner were greeted with bullets as they approached the small sedan just after 8 p.m. on Ridge Drive and Marshall Road, police said.
Medics rushed the cop, whom they did not identify, to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. Authorities said she is expected to recover from her wound — a shot that went through one side of her chin and out the other.
The officers were responding to a call from a neighbor, who saw the car parked in a remote spot on the quaint residential street, sources said.
As the cops got near the car, one of the two men inside pulled out a pistol and started blasting, said Yonkers Police Commissioner Charles Gardner.
“The officers returned fire,” Gardner said. “One of the suspects was hit.”
Emergency radio transmissions portrayed a desperate scene, with the officers pinned behind the suspect’s car, unable to move to get the wounded cop to an ambulance.
“We have an officer shot in the face. Can we please f---ing get some units here?” an officer is heard asking a dispatcher. “Can we get an armored truck or something to come get this officer out? She’s shot in the face. We’re right behind the suspect. We’re pinned down. We can’t f---ing move.”Police took both suspects into custody. One of the men needed surgery after being shot in the exchange, Gardner said. He’s in serious but stable condition, police said. Police also recovered a firearm from the scene.
The wounded officer is assigned to the Yonkers Police Department’s 3rd Precinct.
“We have a fine police department and these are two of our finest officers,” said Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano.
Witness Robert D’Amato recalled seeing an ambulance pull out with the wounded officer followed by seven police cars.
“Usually there are shots fired and someone runs away. This was a gunfight,” he said. “Nobody was running away.”
The NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit and the aviation unit assisted at the scene.