NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City police officer was shot and killed Monday during a traffic stop, the city’s mayor said.
“We lost one of our sons today and it is extremely painful. It is extremely painful,” Mayor Eric Adams said, addressing reporters at a hospital in Queens.
The shooting happened just before 5:50 p.m. in the Far Rockaway section of Queens, police said. The officer and his partner were part of the NYPD Critical Response Team and were conducting a traffic stop at the time.
As they approached the vehicle, the suspect pointed a gun toward the officers and shot the one officer beneath his bullet-proof vest, said Police Commissioner Edward Caban. Officers returned fire and wounded one of the people in the vehicle, who was taken to an area hospital.
The wounded officer was taken to an area hospital but could not be saved, officials said. He was a three-year veteran.
The police department’s chief of detectives, Joseph Kenny, said the officers had initially initiated contact with the driver because he was parked at a bus stop illegally. “He was asked to leave the car. He was given a lawful order numerous times to step out of the car. He refused. And when the officers took him out of the car, rather than stepping out of the car, he shot our officer.”
Adams, who said he met with the officer’s grieving widow, called the shooting a “senseless act of violence.”
“Can I say it any clearer? It is the good guys against the bad guys,” he said. “And these bad guys are violent. They carry guns. And the symbol of our public safety, which is that police uniform, they have a total disregard for.”
Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association of New York, expressed anger over the shooting.
“These attacks on New York City police officers have to end right now,” he said.