A New York City police officer was killed and another, who is in extremely critical condition, is fighting for his life after a gunman opened fire on them in a Harlem apartment Friday, officials said.
The suspect was shot by a third officer and is in critical condition, a police spokesperson said early Saturday.
The officers responded about 6:15 p.m. to a 911 call regarding a woman having a dispute with her son, police said.
AMBUSHED
When they arrived, the woman and one son were at the front of the apartment. The two officers were shot at without warning when they went down a narrow hallway to the rear bedroom where the suspect was, police said.
“As our first officer approached the bedroom, the door swings open, and numerous shots are fired, striking both officers,” Chief of Detectives James Essig said at a news conference at Harlem Hospital.
Officer Jason Rivera, 22, was killed, police said. The injured officer, Officer Wilbert Mora, 27, Is gravely injured and is undergoing surgery.
The suspect, Lashawn McNeil, 47, was then shot in the arm and head by a third officer, Essig said.
Rivera and the second officer are the fourth and fifth NYPD officers shot this year.
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“I am struggling to find the words to express the tragedy we are enduring. We’re mourning, and we’re angry,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.
THE GUNS DID IT?
It was immediately made about guns, not illegal guns secured by criminals.
The Glock handgun found at the scene of Friday’s crime was stolen from Baltimore in 2017, according to police.
“We don’t make guns here,” Mayor Eric Adams said, referring to the proliferation of guns in the city and asking the federal government for help with gun control legislation. “How are we removing thousands of guns off the street and they are still finding their way into New York City?”
The killer is a felon, a drug dealer, and he’s not allowed to have a gun.
CAREER CRIMINAL
The killer has out-of-state arrests and a lengthy police record.
In 1998, he was arrested in South Carolina for unlawful possession of a weapon. The matter was later dismissed, records show.
McNeil was then busted for assaulting a police officer in Pennsylvania in 2002, Essig said.
In 2003, he was arrested twice in Pennsylvania, once on a felony drug charge and also on a misdemeanor narcotics charge.
McNeil was on probation for a 2003 felony narcotics conviction in New York City, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said in a late-night news conference from Harlem Hospital.
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