NYPD Officer Dies After Being Shot In The Head In The Bronx, Police Kills Suspect

A New York City police officer died after being shot in the head while on duty in the early hours Wednesday, according to reports. Officer Miosotis Familia was sitting in a police vehicle in the Bronx when a person walked up to the car and fired at her head through the window.

The official Twitter handle of the New York City Police Department revealed the details in a series of tweets, saying Familia, a veteran of 12 years in the department, was taken to a nearby hospital immediately. Later, WNBC-TV reporter Tracie Strahan in a tweet reported that the officer died after being in a critical condition for a few hours.

The department called the attack “unprovoked." The New York Post quoted an anonymous law enforcement officer saying he believed it was “an attempted cop assassination." According to the police, the gunman approached Familia at 12:30 a.m. as she sat inside a temporary headquarters vehicle at East 183rd Street and Morris Avenue in Fordham Heights.

New York Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said the suspect fired one round, after which the shot officer’s partner called for backup. Cops rushing to the scene were warned by radio to keep their patrol vehicle windows closed while responding. Two other officers confronted the attacker about a block away, and shot him dead, according to the department’s tweets.

Anthony DiLorenzo, a journalist of PIX 11 News, in a tweet said the suspect was identified as a resident of New York. A revolver was found near the dead suspect. An investigation is in progress.

A bystander, who was struck by a bullet in the stomach, was admitted to St. Barnabas Hospital and is said to be stable.

Witness Jay Marzelli, 17, told the Post that he first thought the gunshot were fireworks. He said: “I was in this bodega right here on Crescent, just getting a sandwich and all of a sudden there was all this running and stuff going on and I look out probably 40,50, 60 cops screaming, 'Call a paramedic, clear the block.'’’

He added that he heard gunshots after two seconds: “I saw an officer laying there in the ground unconscious in another officers' arms. Police officers screaming: ‘Get the f—ing paramedics.' It was crazy — just insane. There were police officers everywhere.”

This is not the first time that an attack like this has happened in New York. In 2014, two police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were shot dead while sitting in their car in a similar fashion. The man who shot them, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, had come from Baltimore vowing to kill officers, according to reports. In this incident too, both policemen were shot in the head. Brinsley later killed himself with the same gun on a subway platform as officers closed in on him.