A gunman shot two police sergeants who were trying to arrest him minutes after an armed robbery on the Lower East Side in Manhattan on Thursday, Police Department officials said.
One officer was shot in the groin, and the other was grazed by a bullet in the leg, Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives, said at a news conference on Thursday at Bellevue Hospital, where the officers were being treated for their wounds. Both were in stable condition, said Chief Kenny, who was joined at the news conference by Mayor Eric Adams.
The sergeant who was grazed will be released from the hospital on Thursday night, and the sergeant who was shot in the groin will be held overnight for observation. A man, Joshua Dorsett, 22, was taken into custody at the scene, Chief Kenny said.
Around 4:15 p.m., the police responded to a 911 call regarding a man on the second floor of a building on Canal Street near Eldridge Street, Chief Kenny said. The man, whom the police later identified as Mr. Dorsett, had pulled out a gun and pointed it at several women at a mahjong parlor, a popular neighborhood spot where people gather and bet money on mahjong games, he said.
Mr. Dorsett demanded that the women hand over their purses. He grabbed a number of purses, ran out of the building and fled north on foot, Chief Kenny said. Seven minutes later, police officers on Delancey Street saw Mr. Dorsett, who fit the description of the gunman.
A footchase ensued. Francisco Huayta, who works on the Lower East Side, was on the corner of Delancey and Eldridge Streets shortly after 4 p.m. when he saw a man sprinting away from police officers, he said. The two sergeants grabbed Mr. Dorsett and pushed him up against a vehicle, Chief Kenny said. The sergeants demanded that he show his hands. As they did, Mr. Dorsett began to pull a loaded gun out of his front pants pocket, Chief Kenny said.
When they tried to wrestle the gun away, Mr. Dorsett fired, striking both sergeants with the same bullet, Chief Kenny said.
Mr. Huayta and Ricardo Hernandez, 64, who also witnessed the chase, heard the gun go off, and then a police officer cried out in anguish.
“One of the cops screamed, ‘Oh! I’m shot!’” Mr. Huayta said.
He and Mr. Hernandez said that they had seen one of the wounded sergeants screaming, as officers escorted him into a police car, which sped away.
At the news conference Chief Kenny said that Mr. Dorsett was a member of a gang called “Up the Hill.”
Mr. Dorsett lives on Madison Street, six blocks from the mahjong parlor, Chief Kenny said.
At the time of his arrest, Mr. Dorsett was on probation for selling drugs, a fifth-degree felony. He had arrived for a scheduled visit with his parole officer that morning, hours before the robbery, Chief Kenny said.
Police officials did not name the injured officers. One, the public safety sergeant for the Fifth Precinct, is 43 and has been a member of the Police Department for 16 years, according to Jeffrey B. Maddrey, the department’s chief of patrol. The other officer joined the department in 2013 and is the neighborhood coordination sergeant for the Seventh Precinct, Chief Maddrey said.
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