BROOKLYN — An NYPD sergeant shot a knife-wielding man whom he caught stripping a car in Flatbush early Friday morning, police said.
The plainclothes sergeant was in an unmarked car when he found two men taking the wheels off a 2015 Honda Fit on East 19th Street between Glenwood Road and Foster Avenue about 4 a.m., an NYPD spokesman said.
The sergeant approached then, but they fled in two nearby cars, police said.
The sergeant called two other plainclothes officers who were patrolling nearby in another unmarked police car and they chased after the men as the sergeant stayed on the scene, officials said.
The thieves were not immediately arrested, an NYPD spokesman said.
But a third car carrying two men came up to the scene to retrieve some of the parts the thieves had left, police said.
The sergeant identified himself and the men jumped back into the vehicle and tried to flee, but struck an empty parked car nearby, police said.
When the sergeant then pulled up beside their driver's side and tried to talk to them, the driver slipped out of the passenger's side window, ignoring the sergeant's orders for him to get back in the vehicle, police said.
The driver then whipped out a knife and threatened the sergeant, who kept telling him to drop the weapon, officials said.
The driver didn't so the sergeant shot him once, police said.
The driver dropped the knife, ran away and was not immediately arrested, police said. Investigators recovered his knife at the scene.
The other man who had been in the car, 26, was taken into custody, NYPD officials said. The passenger, whose name was not immediately released, was awaiting formal charges, police said.
The sergeant was treated for tinnitus at Kings County Hospital, police said.
The Friday shooting marked the third time in four days in which police fired on suspects.
Officers shot a man in East Harlem Tuesday night after he shot another man in the back on the sidewalk, officials said.
Officers then Wednesday morning fatally shot Isaiah Hampton who was holding his ex-girlfriend hostage at gunpoint in The Bronx, police said.
