By Ben Fractenberg and Tom Liddy
DNAinfo Staff
MANHATTAN — The NYPD detective who was shot in a dramatic confrontation with a wanted gunman in a Harlem subway station Tuesday afternoon is a Navy veteran who is no stranger to heroics, his dad told DNAinfo.
Vance Herlihy, 72, himself a retired NYPD detective, said that his son Kevin — who was shot at point blank range, but still managed to kill the gunman — calmly called him after the wild shooting to tell him not to worry about TV news reports about the incident.
"I’m OK. If you hear my name on TV, don’t worry about it," Herlihy recalled his 47-year-old son saying. "I’m fine. I got shot.'"
Det. Kevin Herlihy, a married father of three, had been following a man wanted for shooting a 25-year-old woman in the face in Queens when the suspect ducked into the 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue subway station around 4 p.m.
There the suspect, Michael McBride, 52, whipped out a gun that was hidden under a newspaper and fired at least three times, hitting Herlihy in the arm.
Although he was wounded, Herlihy, a married father of three from Long Island, managed to fire back, killing the gunman before he wounded anyone else.
The elder Herlihy, who was assigned to Brooklyn South Homicide during his time on the force, said that his son's heroics had been on display when he saved his fellow crew members aboard a Naval destroyer.
When a problem arose with a valve on the warship, Herlihy jumped into action, releasing pressure on the valve.
"He saved half the crew," the dad said.
But when asked whether his son, who sources said had three commendations, was a hero, Vance Herlihy simply said: "That's the kind of guy he is."
