Four NYPD cops were shot during a wild gunfight inside a sixth-floor Brooklyn apartment by a crazed ex-con menacing his pregnant girlfriend and their 4-month-old son.
Three of the cops were shot in the leg; one was grazed in the face. All four were in good condition at Lutheran Medical Center.
“You see our police officers putting their lives on the line every single day,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “Here we were very lucky, but it could have been a great tragedy.”
The gunman, identified as 33-year-old Nakwon Foxworth, was shot three times in his toy-strewn Sheepshead Bay one bedroom.
He was listed in critical condition at Kings County Hospital, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg said.
His baby and his pregnant girlfriend, Jessica Hickling, were shaken up but fine, according to relatives.
The mayhem began about 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Kelly said early Sunday.
Foxworth got into an argument near the building’s service entrance with a group of moving company employees, Kelly said. He forced them back to their truck at gunpoint and one of them called police.
“He’s got a gun ... he’s got a gun,” the mover told the dispatcher, Kelly said.
Cops said Foxworth then took his terrified pregnant girlfriend — who was also carrying their baby in her arms — up to their apartment on the sixth floor of 3301 Nostrand Ave.
NYPD investigators enlisted the help of the building superintendent and they used surveillance footage to determine which apartment was Foxworth’s, Kelly said.
At unit 6K, they got no answer but by looking through the peephole, they could see a man, woman and child inside, Kelly said.
The cops settled in for a standoff and had summoned hostage negotiators when Hickling suddenly burst through the apartment door with the baby in her arms.
Capt. Al Pizzano and Det. Kenneth Ayala were also injured.
She said Foxworth had a gun and was holding her captive.
Cops entered Foxworth’s living room and bullets started to fly.
“When she just left and left the door open, he started shooting,” Kelly said.
“The gunfight occurred in close quarters with the assailant and the officers no more than 10 feet apart.”
Foxworth, who was in the bedroom, fired 12 rounds from his 9 mm Browning handgun at the officers, police said. They returned fire, Kelly said.
Det. Michael Keenan (r.) and officer Matthew Granahan two of four police officers wounded in the gunbattle.
The injured officers were: Det. Michael Keenan, 52, shot in the front calf; Det. Kenneth Ayala, 40, shot once in the thigh and once in the left ankle; Officer Matthew Granahan, 35, shot in the calf; and Capt. Al Pizzano, 49, who was grazed in the face.
“Although hit, Detective Ayala and Officer Granahan returned fire, striking Foxworth in the abdomen,” Kelly said.
