NEW YORK — Shocking video below shows a Brooklyn man opening fire on NYPD officers in the stairwell of an apartment building, striking two officers who “narrowly avoided being killed,” police said Monday.
The officers were responding to a 911 call about a man shot inside his Prospect Lefferts Gardens home at around 9 p.m. Sunday.
CCTV footage released by police Monday shows a man exiting the second-floor apartment in question with a blanket over his head, New York Post reported.
He then begins speaking to the responding officers standing at the bottom of the narrow staircase.
After exchanging a few words with the seemingly belligerent man the officers begin walking up the stairs in a single file line, according to bodycam video.
“You called?” the first officer in line questions.
That’s when he realizes the man had pulled out a .38 caliber revolver from under the blanket — and yells “Yo! Put the gun down!”
Next, the suspect squeezed off three rounds from about 10 feet away, according to police.
The first officer in the line of fire “instinctively turned his body” and bladed himself, allowing him “to avoid a direct impact to his bullet-resistant vest,” NYPD Chief of Detective Rodney Harrison told reporters on Monday.
The bullet grazed the front of his vest, hit his body-worn camera and got lodged inside his jacket, Harrison said.
Another round grazed the shin of the fourth officer in the line, police said.
Both officers were taken to a hospital for evaluation and were in stable condition, the Post reported.
“This incident could have been a lot worse,” Harrison said, “but by the grace of God, our heroic officers will be going home.”
The suspect, identified by sources as Ridwaan Abdur Rashin, 44, barricaded himself inside the apartment and was eventually arrested and taken to Brookdale Hospital for evaluation, according to the Post.
Police determined that he’d shot his roommate in each leg. The roommate was taken to Kings County Hospital and was in stable condition.
Watch as @NYPDShea and @NYPDDetectives update the media on last night's police involved shooting in the confines of the @NYPD71PCT. pic.twitter.com/bduOeZ3Zdt
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) March 8, 2021
In addition to the revolver, which police said was an illegal firearm, police also found an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a shotgun inside the apartment.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said that both of the officers “narrowly avoided being killed.”
“We have seen this far too often lately,” he told reporters.
