Brooklyn cops probing 911 gunshot report open fire on fleeing Honda CRV that struck officer; driver wounded

Brooklyn cops probing 911 gunshot report open fire on fleeing Honda CRV that struck officer; driver wounded

A uniformed NYPD officer opened fire on a driver who tried to run him down as he and his partner investigated a report of gunshots in Brooklyn early Saturday, police said.

The motorist, who was behind the wheel of a Honda CRV, was wounded, said cops.

The officers, members of the 90th Precinct’s Public Safety Team, were summoned the corner of Broadway and Lorimer St. in Williamsburg at 3:55 a.m. after someone called 911 to report gunfire near a nightclub, police said.

When officers got to the scene, they saw three vehicles driving away. “They were fleeing at a high rate of speed and had gone through a red light,” said NYPD Deputy Chief John Chell, commanding officer of Brooklyn North detectives.

The officers searched the area and found the escaping vehicles a short time later about two miles away near the corner of Meeker Ave. and Vandervoort Ave. in Greenpoint, Chell said.

It appeared as if the three vehicles had crashed into each other, he said.

Two uniformed cops exited their unmarked police vehicle and approached one of the three fleeing cars, a white Honda CRV.

“We have one officer on the passenger side imploring the driver to shut the car off,” said Chell, who reviewed the officers’ body camera footage.

“Her partner was in front of the vehicle, giving directions. After a minute, the white car decides to flee, striking one of the officers who subsequently discharges his firearm three times into that vehicle.”

“(He) was thrown across the street when he was hit by that vehicle,” Chell said about the struck officer. “The officer was roughly one or two feet in front of the white vehicle when the gas was hit.”

The cop was injured in his leg and knee, and a second officer also suffered a hand injury during the clash, cops said. Both were taken to area hospitals, where they were treated and released.

A short time later, a 21-year-old man showed up at Wyckoff Hospital with a gunshot wound to his chest. Chell said detectives believed the man was the driver of the Honda CRV, and noted that none of the cars seen fleeing the scene had been located.

No charges were immediately filed against the suspected driver.

Detectives later on Saturday were investigating the shots fired call and were trying to determine if it was linked to a nightclub nearby, Chell said.

“We going to backtrack that call to what happened at Vandervoort and Meeker,” Chell said. “We have to piece the whole situation together.”

Saturday’s shooting follows a rising trend in the NYPD where police officers open fire on fleeing vehicles. It’s believed that cops have either shot at or hit escaping cars at least five times in the last six months.

NYPD policy discourages shooting at moving vehicles unless something other than the vehicle is being used as a weapon. There are exceptions, based on circumstance. NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey said earlier this year that this “carveout” allows the department to review those shootings on a case-by-case basis.

Bronx cops shot and critically wounded 18-year-old Luis Manuel-Monsato in March as he drove his speeding vehicle at a police officer at E. 165th St. and Boston Road in Morrisania. The incident was captured on police body camera video. Cops pulled over Manuel-Monsato’s Jeep after it was seen blowing through several red lights as it traveled north on Boston Road.

Then, in April, an NYPD officer fired a shot at a suspected Porsche thief on the Belt Parkway in Sheepshead Bay after the driver tried to mow down a cop on the highway, police said.

Also in March, Police Officer Richard Delahanty, 29, was arrested on misdemeanor reckless endangerment charges for firing a half-dozen bullets at a car fleeing a traffic stop gone wrong on Feb. 21, 2021, sending Bronx pedestrians scrambling for safety and rush hour drivers ducking for cover.

Probably the most infamous case of officers firing into an escaping vehicle was in 2006, when plainclothes officers fired 50 rounds into Sean Bell’s car in Queens, killing the 23-year-old groom and wounding two of his friends.

The NYPD used force to a varying degree during 67 car stops in the first quarter of 2022, according to NYPD statistics. The numbers aren’t broken down to indicate how many of those incidents involved shootings. In 2021, force was used in 254 car stops, statistics show.