A New York City police officer was gunned down and another left fighting for his life after a man opened fire on them in a Harlem apartment Friday evening, officials said.
Officer Jason Rivera, 22, was killed and a second officer was in critical condition, police said. The second officer was identified by the NYPD as Wilbert Mora, 27.
They were the fourth and fifth New York Police Department officers shot this year.
The pair were responding to a 911 call about a woman having a dispute with her son at 6:15 p.m., police said.
When they arrived, the woman and one son were at the front of the apartment. The two officers were fired upon without warning when they went down a narrow hallway to the rear bedroom where the suspect was, police added.
“As our first officer approached the bedroom, the door swings open and numerous shots are fired, striking both officers,” James Essig, chief of detectives, told a news conference at Harlem Hospital.
The suspect, Lashawn Mcneil, 47, was then shot in the arm and head by a third officer, Essig said.
Mcneil was in critical condition, according to a police spokesperson early Saturday. Several spokespeople for the department initially said the suspect had died.
A Glock 45 handgun with an extended 40-round magazine was recovered at the scene, police said, adding that the gun was stolen in Baltimore in 2017.
President Joe Biden said he and First Lady Jill Biden were saddened to hear about the shooting.
"We’re keeping them and their families in our prayers," he said in a tweet on Saturday. "Officers put on the badge and head into harm’s way every day. We’re grateful to them and their families for their extraordinary sacrifice."
Keechant Sewell, who was sworn in as the NYPD's first female police commissioner earlier this month, told a news conference that she was “struggling to find the words to express the tragedy we are enduring.”
“We’re mourning, and we’re angry,” she said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was horrified by the shooting.
“I know that all of New York is standing with these officers and their families,” she said.
Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD police captain who ran on a pledge to combat gun violence, said the shooting was a crime against all New Yorkers.
“It is our city against the killers,” Adams said. “This was just not an attack on three brave officers, this was an attack on the city of New York. And it’s an attack on the children and families of this city.”
Adams referred to the five officers shot and an 11-month-old girl who was wounded by a stray bullet, and called on the federal government to do more to stop the flow of illegal guns into the city.
“We are not going to live under the gun of dangerous people in New York City,” Adams said.
Four of the five shootings that wounded NYPD officers this year happened this week.
On Thursday, a police detective was shot on Staten Island as police served a warrant in a narcotics investigation; on Tuesday, an officer was struck in the leg in the Bronx during a struggle with an armed suspect; and early on Jan. 1, an off-duty officer was shot while sleeping in his car between shifts, officials said. The three officers survived.