Fatal Shooting of NYPD Officer Leaves NYC Looking for Answers to Gun Violence
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NYPD Narcotics Detective Wounded In Shooting On Staten Island Hailed As Hero For Protecting Fellow Officers
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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — An NYPD detective was shot while executing a search warrant Thursday on Staten Island.
According to police, a shootout between the detective and a suspect happened in a home on Rockne Street in the New Springville section of the borough at around 6 a.m.
The wounded officer, identified as Dominick Libretti, was taken to Staten Island University Hospital in stable condition.
“Based on a long-term investigation, Staten Island narcotics officers conducted a warrant this morning at 82 Rockne St. After entering that location, they made their way up a flight of stairs where the perpetrator fired numerous shots at our officers, striking one detective in the leg,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.
The officers returned fire, according to Sewell.
Watch: NYPD Officials Give Update After Detective Shot On Staten Island
“Even with a serious leg wound, bleeding badly enough that fellow officers had to apply immediate pressure to slow the blood loss, he held up a ballistic shield in front of his team to protect them from gunfire,” Sewell said.
Residents of the area told CBS2 they didn’t know their neighbors, but saw a lot of people coming and going from that home. Still, they found the news to be shocking.
“Everybody ran out of the house. They took the cop in the car and they drove off,” the man told CBS2’s Leah Mishkin.
“I’ve been here 32 years. I’ve never seen this. This is wild stuff,” resident Tom Biondolillo said.
Deputy Mayor Lorraine Grillo, who was present on behalf of Mayor Eric Adams, who is in Washington D.C., said she met with Libretti and his family at the hospital and offered him the support of the city.
“He risked his life for all of us. Now we have to support him,” Grillo said.
The officer’s injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, but Dr. Eli Kleinman, the NYPD’s supervising chief surgeon, said, “This is possibly a career-ending injury. The officer will be going to the OR because of some complications that have set in and we’re all praying for his recovery and we expect that he will make a full recovery.”
Libretti is the third city cop to be wounded on the job to start 2022.
“Because there are so many guns on the street and the policies that are in place with bail reform are not working, the people of this city are unsafe. The start of bail reform until now, there’s a direct correlation to shootings, drug dealings and violent crime in this city. It’s clearly not working,” Detectives Endowment Association President Paul DiGiacomo said.
The heroics of our Detective who was shot on Staten Island and the team of officers who were in a fight for their lives was extraordinary. I’m grateful for their courage, their willingness to continue every effort to make this city safe — and that our Detective is recovering. pic.twitter.com/ObzDyzzcMM — Commissioner Sewell (@NYPDPC) January 20, 2022
The shooting suspect, 39-year-old Nelson Pizarro, has seven prior arrests in New York, a gun arrest in Massachusetts and a larceny in Connecticut, said NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig.
Pizarro was shot in the leg and taken into custody. He is expected to recover.
He has been charged with attempted murder of a police officer, assault on a police officer and criminal possession of a weapon.
The person who officers had an arrest warrant for was also taken into custody, as were two women who were inside the home.
CBS2’s Leah Mishkin contributed to this report. Editor’s note: This story was first published Jan. 20.
Prayer vigil held in Harlem after NYPD officer killed, another injured in shooting
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Prayer vigil held in Harlem after NYPD officer killed, another injured in shooting
News 12’s Noelle Lilley was in Harlem where the National Action Network shared condolences and sent prayers to the families of the officers involved.
Investigators Learning More About Lashawn McNeil, Suspect Accused Of Shooting 2 NYPD Officers In Harlem
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Young officer slain in Harlem joined to help ‘chaotic city’
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Young officer slain in Harlem joined to help ‘chaotic city’
The 22-year-old New York City police officer who was shot to death while responding to a call in a Harlem apartment came from an immigrant family and grew up in a community with strained police relations, but joined the force to make a difference in the “chaotic city,” he once wrote.
“I know that something as small as helping a tourist with directions, or helping a couple resolve an issue, will put a smile on someone’s face,” Jason Rivera wrote to his commanding officer in 2020 when he was a probationary police officer.
Rivera and Officer Wilbert Mora were shot Friday night while answering a call about an argument between a woman and her adult son. Mora, 27, suffered a serious head wound, police said.
The medical examiner ruled Rivera’s death a homicide on Saturday after an autopsy found he died from gunshot wounds to the head and torso.
Mora was still “fighting for his life” on Saturday, said Mayor Eric Adams. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, visited Mora and his family in the hospital and gave the wounded officer a blessing, according to a spokesman the archdiocese.
The man police say shot them, Lashawn J. McNeil, 47, also was critically wounded and hospitalized, authorities said. Police declined to comment later Saturday about the conditions of Mora and McNeil.
The shooting is the latest in a string of crimes that have unnerved the nation’s largest city.
In the three weeks since Adams took office, a 19-year-old cashier was shot to death as she worked a late-night shift at a Burger King, a woman was pushed to her death in a subway station, and a baby was critically injured when she was hit by a stray bullet as she sat in a parked car with her mother. With the Harlem shooting Friday night, four police officers had been shot in as many days.
Officers Jason Rivera (left) and Wilbert Mora (Right) - NYPD Officers Jason Rivera (left) and Wilbert Mora (Right) - NYPD
And the city is recovering from its deadliest fire in three decades, a Bronx apartment blaze that killed 17 people.
“It’s hard to believe, but it’s only been three weeks, and it has been nonstop since then,” Adams told residents at a gun violence roundtable Saturday. “But I want you to know in a very clear way that I am more energized. I’m not tired. I’m not stressed out.”
Rivera joined the force in November 2020.
Growing up in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood, he noticed tensions with police, according to a brief essay titled “Why I Became a Police Officer,” a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
“I remember one day when I witnessed my brother being stopped and frisked. I asked myself, why are we being pulled over if we are in a taxi?” he wrote. “My perspective on police and the way they police really bothered me.”
But eventually he noticed the department working to improve relationships, and he wanted to be involved.
“I realized how impactful my role as a police officer would go in this chaotic city,” he wrote.
Anti-domestic violence advocate Stephanie McGraw, who knew Rivera through her work with the precinct, said he was energetic and enthusiastic.
“He was so eager to make a difference in this community,” said McGraw, founder of We All Really Matter.
Mora is similarly devoted to the community, she said.
Police said the gun used in Friday night’s shooting, a .45-caliber Glock with a high-capacity magazine capable of holding up to 40 extra rounds, had been stolen in Baltimore in 2017.
Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul both said federal authorities need to do more to round up stolen guns like the one used in the Harlem shooting. Hochul, at an appearance in Buffalo on Saturday, called it a “scourge of illegal guns on our streets.”
“We’re removing thousands of guns off the street,” Adams told reporters Saturday. “But there’s an endless flow that continues to come through our city borders.”
Adams said a woman who made an emergency call Friday said she was ill and that her son who had come up to take care of her had become “problematic.” Adams said the woman did not specify the problem.
Authorities said three officers went to the apartment after the call came in. The officers spoke with the woman and another son, but there was no mention of a weapon, police said.
After Rivera and Mora walked from the front of the apartment down a narrow hallway to check on McNeil, he swung open a bedroom door and began shooting, police said. Both officers were gunned down before they could pull their weapons and defend themselves, police said.
As McNeil tried to flee, a third officer who had stayed with McNeil’s mother in the front of the apartment shot at McNeil and wounded him in the head and arm, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said.
“This was just not an attack on these brave officers,” Adams said Friday night. “This was an attack on the city of New York.”
Mora has been with the NYPD for four years.
McNeil was on probation for a 2003 drug conviction in New York City. He also had several out-of-state arrests. In 1998, he was arrested in South Carolina on suspicion of unlawfully carrying a pistol, but records show the matter was later dismissed. In 2002, he was arrested in Pennsylvania on suspicion of assaulting a police officer, Essig said.