New York: A New York City police officer was killed and another seriously injured Friday night while answering a call about an argument between a woman and her adult son, officers said, four in the city. Officers were shot for several days.
Just three weeks into their jobs, Mayor Eric Adams – a former police captain – and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell stand before the media at Harlem Hospital, condemning violence against the New York Police Department.
“Countless officers lined up this hallway after taking her in and mourning for her brother, praying they had everything,” Sewell said. “I am struggling to find the words to express the tragedy we are going through. We are grieving, and we are angry.”
“It was not just an attack on these brave officers. It was an attack on New York City,” Adams said.
Adams called on federal officials to do more to nab stolen guns, as used in Friday’s shooting inside a Harlem apartment.
“There are no gun manufacturers in New York City,” he said. “We don’t make guns here. How are we going to take thousands of guns off the street and they’re still finding their way into New York City, who are the killers?
Officers said the officers, accompanied by a third officer, went to the apartment on 135th Street when a woman, needing help with her son, was arrested by police, 47-year-old Lashavan J. Recognized as McNeil.
Officials said officers spoke to the woman and another son, but there was no mention of the weapon. Then they both walked down a narrow, 30-foot (9-meter) hallway from the front of the apartment.
NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said McNeil opened a bedroom door and opened fire on officers.
The officer killed was identified as 22-year-old Jason Rivera, who joined the force in November 2020, and the injured officer was identified as 27-year-old Wilbert Mora, who had been with the NYPD for four years.
As McNeil tried to escape, a third officer who stayed in front of the apartment with McNeil’s mother shot McNeill and wounded him in the head and arm, Essig said.
McNeill is alive and hospitalized in critical condition, with NYPD spokesman Lieutenant John Grimpel correcting earlier reports that he was killed. Sewell and Adams did not take questions at the hospital press conference.
McNeil’s last known address is in Allentown, Pennsylvania, approximately 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of New York City.
McNeil was on probation for a drug conviction in New York City in 2003. He also had several out-of-state arrests. In 1998, he was arrested in South Carolina for illegally carrying a pistol, but records show that the case was later dismissed. Essig said he was arrested in Pennsylvania in 2002 for assaulting a police officer.
Police said the gun used in Friday night’s shooting, a .45-caliber Glock with a high-capacity magazine that holds 40 additional rounds, was stolen in Baltimore in 2017.
Friday night’s shooting took place in a street-level apartment in a six-story apartment building on a block between two iconic Harlem avenues: Malcolm X Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
Over three nights, a Bronx officer suffered a leg injury during a fight with a teenager who also shot himself. A narcotics detective was shot in the leg on Staten Island on Thursday.
Under Adams, the NYPD has reinstated a plainclothes anti-crime unit aimed at taking guns out of the streets. The unit was disbanded in 2020 due to concerns caused by shootings and a disproportionate number of complaints.
The NYPD has partnered with prosecutors, city and federal agencies in recent months on a task force that meets daily and works to track gun violence, speed up gunshots, and build cases against shooters and gun traffickers. works. works for.