Hunt for Cop Shooter

Two Police Officers Wounded in Fordham Heights Gun Battle

By David Greene

BRONX, NEW YORK, JANUARY 6- A day after NYPD police officer Wenjian Liu was laid to rest, two anti-crime cops were wounded after they responded to a call of a robbery in progress at a deli in Fordham Heights.

Details were still sketchy, but officials say officers from the 46th Precinct anti-crime unit were in the area when an alert of a robbery in progress was reported at a deli located at East 184 Street and Tiebout Avenue at 10:23 p.m. on January 5.

Officials say a 30-year-old male officer was hit in the lower back and left arm and was reported to be in surgery in the wee hours of January 6. The unidentified officer was listed in critical, but stable condition.

The second wounded officer is a 38-year-old male who was shot in the chest and left arm and remains in stable condition at the same hospital.

Officials say that after the gun battle, one suspect fled in a stolen white Chevy Camaro-- that crashed on Park Avenue. Dozens of uniformed officers were brought in to canvas the area for the suspect.

Police would later recover the .45 caliber handgun tossed in a construction site at Fordham Plaza.

Dozens of officers were brought to the area in vans as they shutdown bus service across Fordham Road and briefly halted train service out of the Fordham Road Metro North Station.

Detectives would discover a second vehicle involved, a Nissan Altima outside of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan and are currently questioning a man being treated for a gun shot wound to the back.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton paid a late-night visit to the officers at the hospital.

Bratton briefed reporters on one officer's condition, saying, "He is currently in the operating room and is listed in critical condition."

By daybreak, police would release a video of the gunman, believed to be still at large. The suspect already in custody had not yet been charged as of Tuesday morning.

One Bronx detective warned, "They'd better turn themselves in because there's not a rock in the world they can hide where we won't find them."

Anyone with any information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.