Four Officers Are Shot in Brooklyn; Assailant Is Critically Wounded

[X Factor 1,112]

Four Officers Are Shot in Brooklyn; Assailant Is Critically Wounded

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/nyregion/four-officers-wounded-in-gunfight-in-brooklyn.html?_r=1&nl=nyregion&emc=edit_ur_20120409

The dispute began as a simple argument on the sidewalk: a couple with a baby stroller found the entrance to their home blocked by some movers. Words were exchanged. A gun was brandished.

New York Police Department

Detective Michael Keenan

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. New York Police Department

Detective Kenneth Ayala

New York Police Department

Officer Matthew Granahan

New York Police Department

Capt. Al Pizzano

“You just got out of jail; you’re going to go back to jail,” a witness, Jusuf Koci, recalled hearing the mother tell her companion, who held the gun.

Hours later, the man identified as the gunman, Nakwon Foxworth, engaged the police in a pitched close-range gun battle early Sunday in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, the police said. Four police officers were shot; all were expected to fully recover. Mr. Foxworth was in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

The shootings underscored the Bloomberg administration’s continuing campaign for Congress to enact tougher gun laws.

“We have now had eight — that’s correct, eight — members of the department shot in the last four months,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Sunday at a news conference at Lutheran Medical Center, where the officers were being treated. “And this is the second time in the last 24 hours police have been fired upon by armed assailants.”

“All the shootings have a disgraceful fact in common: all were committed with illegal guns that came from out of state,” he added. “And that is the case with nearly every shooting in our city.”

Mr. Foxworth, 33, fired his 9-millimeter Browning semiautomatic handgun 12 times at the officers, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said at the hospital. In the couple’s apartment, the police said, they also found a sawed-off, military-style assault rifle equipped with a scope, and a defaced 22-caliber revolver.

Mr. Foxworth was charged with several crimes, including attempted murder and assault on a police officer.

About 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Mr. Foxworth and his pregnant girlfriend returned to her apartment building on Nostrand Avenue with their 4-month-old son, only to find the entrance blocked. Movers were in the way, assisting another resident, and there was not enough room for the stroller to pass.

Mr. Foxworth’s response was extreme: he waved a handgun at the movers and ordered them out of his way and back into their moving van, the police said. One of the movers called 911.

Anti-crime officers from the 61st Precinct tracked the gunman to the couple’s apartment, 6-K, and saw through a peephole the couple and the infant. Nobody came to the door in response to the officers’ knocking, and they grew concerned about the possibility of a hostage situation. Officers from the Emergency Service Unit and a hostage negotiation team were called to the scene.

Not long after, the woman burst out of the apartment holding her baby, Mr. Kelly said. She told the officers that Mr. Foxworth was armed and had been holding them hostage.

As the officers streamed through the door, Mr. Foxworth emerged from a bedroom and began shooting at the six-member Emergency Service team, Mr. Kelly said. He apparently aimed low, trying to shoot below the hand-held ballistic shield that the lead officer carried, according to the Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne.

Detective Michael Keenan, 52, was struck in his left calf; Detective Kenneth Ayala, 49, was hit in the thigh and foot; and Police Officer Matthew Granahan, 35, was wounded in his left calf. Capt. Al Pizzano, 45, also sustained a graze wound to his face, Mr. Kelly said. Three officers, including Detective Ayala and Officer Granahan, returned fire, Mr. Kelly said.

“It was like strobe lights, maybe 15 flashes in a matter of seconds,” said a woman who lives nearby and said she saw the shots while she was smoking a cigarette on her porch across the street.

The handgun Mr. Foxworth fired was originally bought in Wilmington, N.C., Mr. Kelly said. The sawed-off rifle had been stolen in Florida.

Mr. Foxworth was released from prison in 2009 after serving a 10-year term that began with a shorter sentence for a weapons conviction but was extended after he was discovered selling drugs in prison, according to Mr. Browne and prison records. Previously he had served a sentence of nearly two years for attempted murder.

In an unrelated event, officers patrolling in Red Hook, Brooklyn, were fired on early Saturday after approaching two men, one of whom appeared to be drinking alcohol in public. One of the men fled, and after falling down, turned toward the police officers and fired at them, the authorities said.

The officers returned fire and chased the man until they lost him in a building on Columbia Street. Detectives later tracked the man to a livery cab in the Rockaways and arrested him, Mr. Browne said, adding that the suspect was found to have a wound to his shoulder, probably from a police bullet.

[Ban Hammer 13,554]

a convicted felon having a firearm (which is usually against the law) - we need more laws against that!

[웃 910]

a convicted felon having a firearm (which is usually against the law) - we need more laws against that!

They have plenty. I know a guy doing a very long time (maximum release in year 2029) because he got caught with a gun in 08 (at 24 years old) while on parole. His earliest release (which I highly doubt he will get) is December 2012.

Edited April 9, 2012 by ☠

[unlockingsky 94]

a convicted felon having a firearm (which is usually against the law) - we need more laws against that!

he obtain it illegally. the only way i see that we can enforce law down the human experience is to start inserting surveillance into a human body. one that able to record and transmit data.

[mounir412 101]

really sad

[TBoneTX 46,125]

a convicted felon having a firearm (which is usually against the law) - we need more laws against that!

Si, man. Also, I heard that 8 repeat-offender drunken drivers (from out of state) had accidents and killed innocent people, including police officers. We must ban automobiles!

[X Factor 1,112]

really sad

Yep