'He's got a gun’: Four NYPD cops shot in Brooklyn

‘He’s got a gun’: Four NYPD cops shot in Brooklyn

Emergency Service Unit cops wounded in gunbattle in Sheepshead Bay
Published: Sunday, April 8, 2012, 8:24 AM
Updated: Sunday, April 8, 2012, 8:24 AM

A gunbattle in Brooklyn erupted when the NYPD attempted to remove a man from his baracaded apartment early Sunday morning. Four cops were wounded.

Four NYPD cops were wounded in a furious Brooklyn gunbattle early Sunday morning, Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg said.

Miraculously, none of the Emergency Service Unit officers were gravely injured by the barricaded suspect’s bullets at 12:29 a.m., as they attempted to remove him from the Sheepshead Bay apartment, cops said.

The fight started about 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Kelly said early Sunday during a press conference held at Lutheran Medical Center.

Brooklyn resident Nakwon Foxworth, 33, got into an argument with a group of moving company employees, Kelly said, and threatened them with a gun.

Foxworth took his pregnant girlfriend — who was also carrying their 4-month-old son in her arms — back to their Nostrand Ave. apartment on the sixth floor.

One of the moving company employees called police, according to Kelly, and told a dispatcher, “He’s got a gun, he’s got a gun.”

NYPD investigators teamed up with the building superintendent to use surveillance footage to determine where Foxworth lived, Kelly said. Once they found his apartment, police looked through the peephole and saw that Foxworth was holding the girlfriend and infant at gunpoint.

A short while later, Kelly said, the woman busted through the apartment door and told police that she was being held hostage. She also said that Foxworth had a gun.

Cops entered and a gun battle broke out.

“The gunfight occurred in close quarters with the assailant and the officers no more than 10 feet apart,” Kelly said. “With Det. Ayala and Officer Granahan returning fire and sticking Foxworth in the abdomen. A third ESU officer also fired. It was a good thing that Foxworth stopped shooting.”

Foxworth fired 12 rounds at the officers, police said.

The officers include: Det. Michael Keenan, 52, who was shot in front calf; Det. Kenneth Ayala, 40, who was shot twice — once in the thigh and once in the left ankle; Officer Matthew Granahan, 35, who was shot in the calf; and Captn. Al Pizzano, 49, who was grazed in the face.

All four officers were being treated at Lutheran Medical Center on Sunday morning. Some might be released as early as Sunday afternoon, Kelly said.

“We’re not certain about what the fight was about,” Kelly said. “Obviously (Foxworth) was very hyper to say the least. He had a dispute with his lady friend and told her she couldn’t leave. And when she just left and left the door open, he started shooting.”

Records show that Foxworth was incarcerated for 10 years for robbery and selling drugs in prison, and two years for attempted murder. He was in critical but stable condition at Kings County Hospital on Sunday morning.

“You see our police officers putting their lives on the line every single day,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “Here we were very lucky, but it could have been a great tragedy.”

Police confiscated three weapons and 50 rounds of ammunition from within Foxworth’s apartment, Kelly said. The guns included a 9 mm Browning handgun — which was used in the gun battle, and was part of a multiple gun purchase made in North Carolina. Cops also found a loaded, defaced .22 caliber revolver and a sawed-off military assault rifle equipped with a scope. That rifle was stolen from Florida, Kelly said.

Don McGregor, who lives on the sixth floor next door to the suspect, said cops banged on his door and told him to get out. “They said it could turn violent,” he said.

By the time he got to the lobby, McGregor said he heard shots. “They all sounded really muffled and rapid-fire, almost like a machinegun was going off.”

This brings to four the number of NYPD cops shot this year. Det. Kevin Herlihy survived being shot in the arm during a wild shootout in a Harlem subway station on Valentine’s Day and Officer Kevin Brennan is recovering from being shot in the head in Bushwick, Brooklyn, on Jan. 31.

Source: NY Daily News x TH