Two police officers were shot early Monday morning in Queens in a shootout with a 19-year-old man whom they had tried to pull over for riding a motorbike the wrong way down a one-way street, officials said.
One officer was shot in the leg and the other was shot in the front of his bulletproof vest, police officials said. The officers and the man, who was shot in the right ankle, are expected to survive.
The shooting took place in a deserted area of the East Elmhurst neighborhood, near La Guardia Airport, around 1:40 a.m. The officers had been assigned to canvass the neighborhood to address a spate of related robberies involving people on mopeds and scooters, Edward A. Caban, the police commissioner, said at a news conference on Monday.
While patrolling the area in a vehicle, the officers saw a man on a motorbike driving the wrong way down 82nd Street near 23rd Avenue, Mr. Caban said. The officers tried to pull the man over, and he got off the bike and ran.
The officers then chased the man for several blocks on foot before he fired multiple shots at them, Mr. Caban said. The officers returned fire, he said.
The officers were taken to New York City Health and Hospitals in Elmhurst, where officials held the news conference. The man, identified by the police as Bernardo Raul Castro Mata, was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens and is in custody, officials said.
Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives, said at the news conference that Mr. Mata was driving an unregistered motorbike. He has no previous arrests in New York City but is wanted in connection with several robberies in the area, Mr. Kenny said.
Mayor Eric Adams, who visited the officers at the hospital, attended the news conference and held up the bulletproof vest worn by one of the officers.
“Because of this vest, a young police officer is going home,” he said. He added, “Everyday New Yorkers are not wearing this.”
There has been a significant decrease in shootings in New York City this year. As of May 26, the number of people shot this year was 375, a 12 percent decrease compared with the same time period last year, according to police statistics.
Shootings are exceedingly rare in East Elmhurst, a neighborhood within the 115th Precinct. There were no shootings in the area through May 26, and only two people were shot in the precinct during the same time frame last year.
But the number of robberies there has increased by nearly 34 percent, to 143 through May 26 from 107 robberies during that period last year.
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