Monday, April 9, 2012

Four More Officers Are Shot in Brooklyn; all with illegal guns that came from out of state

Four Officers Are Shot in Brooklyn;
Assailant Is Critically Wounded
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEINNYTimes Published: April 8, 2012

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.

"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."


New York Police Department
Detective Michael Keenan


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.


--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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