NEW YORK CITY — Police officers in three different boroughs drew their guns and fired at suspects over the course of less than 24 hours Saturday, according to reports from the NYPD.
The mayhem ranged from an attempt by cops to intervene on a Bronx man's repeated slashing of a woman, to a cop shooting a suspect that was allegedly ransacking a van for a gun at a crime scene the officer was safeguarding while waiting on a warrant, the NYPD said.
By Sunday morning, three arrests had been made, two guns and a knife recovered, and two suspects were hospitalized with bullet wounds from the police-involved shootings, according to NYPD reports.
The earliest police enounter was in Harlem at 2:56 a.m. where three cops in an anti-crime unit were on plainclothes patrol when they heard gunshots erupting from W.111th Street and Lenox Avenue, the NYPD said. The officers responded, and when they arrived at the scene in an unmarked car, saw John Bradley, 27, with a gun in his hand, police said. One officer exited the vehicle and approached Bradley, and that's when he allegedly pointed his gun at the officer, police said.
The two other officers fired at Bradley, according to the NYPD, and Bradley took off on foot, police said. The three officers apprehended Bradley a few blocks later at W.112th Street and Fifth Avenue, and in the pursuit one officer saw him toss a Smith & Wesson .357 aside on W.111th Street. Bradley was charged with several counts of criminal possession and use of weapon, as well as recklesss endangerment, criminal mischeif, and assault of a police officer with a deadly weapon. The officers were treated for tinnitus at St. Luke's - Roosevelt Hospital.
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Soon after in Brooklyn, police protecting a crime scene at 4:30 a.m. fired a round at suspects who were ransacking a van that had been involved in a Crown Heights shooting that left a 20-year-old hospitalized after a bullet grazed his head at 12:59 a.m. on Bergen Street.
A uniformed police officer had been safeguarding a gun that was inside a Ford van while awaiting a search warrant near where a shooting took place at 800 Bergen St. hours earlier, when three men were seen climbing into the van, police said.
The attending officer left his cruiser, and identified himself, ordering the men to stop. That's when he discharged his weapon, police said, and 17-year-old Geremy Botor was shot in the left buttock. Boder was rushed to Kings County Hospital, and in stable condition. He was later charged with criminal possession of a weapon, grand larceny, obstructing the investigation and assault. A second suspect, Kevin Johnson, also 17, was arrested at the scene without injury, and charged in the 1 a.m. shooting of the 20-year-old, facing charges of assault in the second degree, prohibited use of a weapon in addition to the charges faced by Botor. The officer was uninjured by being observed at Methodist Hospital.
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Later that day, at 8:25 p.m., two uniformed officers in the Bronx were waved down by a woman who had witnessed an assault in a Melrose apartment building.
When cops arrived at the 560 Morris Ave. apartment, they found the suspect, a 37-year-old man, stabbing a 35-year-old woman in her torso and legs, police said. The officers ordered the man to stop, but when he didn't listen, one cop fired off his weapon, striking the man in the torso, cops said. The woman, who had been stabbed in her neck, hands, chest, and legs, along with the suspect, were rushed to Lincoln Hospital and were both in critical condition, police said. An 11-inch knife was recovered at the scene, police said.
The cops were treated for tinnitus at Jacobi Hospital, and charges were pending against the man, police said.