Kenny Guido
Well-known member
2 NYPD officers shot in Queens subway gunfight
BY ALISON GENDAR, JONATHAN LEMIRE and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Updated Wednesday, October 22nd 2008, 12:39 AM
Garrett Huger Exclusive photo of dramatic moment of cop shooter's arrest.
Officer Jason Maass
Officer Shane Farina
Two cops were shot in a Queens subway station Tuesday when a fare-beater they were trying to bust got his hands on one of their guns and started firing.
Bullets flew through the 21st St./Queensbridge subway station just after 5 p.m., sending terrified rush-hour commuters diving for cover and scrambling for the exits.
A veteran police lieutenant working nearby responded heroically, ending the wild gun battle by shooting the suspect four times, police said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the two wounded officers, Jason Maass, 28, and Shane Farina, 38, were lucky to be alive.
Kelly identified the suspect as Raul Nuñez, 32, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic who had been deported in 2001 on drug charges.
Nuñez told cops Tuesday night that he shot the officers in a brazen attempt to escape because he feared he would be deported again, a police source said.
Kelly said Nuñez began fighting with the two officers when they tried to handcuff him.
"All three went to the ground. During the struggle, one of the officer's guns came loose" from his holster, Kelly said. "Nuñez grabbed it, stood up and fired at both officers while they were on the ground."
He said Nuñez ran up an escalator, firing another shot at the wounded cops before losing a gunfight with a lieutenant, who had been supervising Maass and Farina on the subway station detail.
Maass, who joined the NYPD two years ago, was shot once in the back, and Farina, a four-year member of the force, was hit in the sternum, Kelly said.
Farina was undergoing surgery Tuesday night at Elmhurst Hospital Center. He was in critical but stable condition. Maass is expected to be released Wednesday.
Kelly said a bullet went through the cloth in the side of Farina's bulletproof vest, ripping into the officer's side, fracturing a rib and exiting his chest.
"I heard gunshots, and everyone just came running out of the subway," said Monique Robert, 29, of Queens, who was outside the Long Island City station when the underground shooting broke out.
The subway station is next to the Queensbridge Houses, the city's largest housing project.
"People were so scared," Robert said. "They just ran."
The wounded cops were both plainclothes members of the NYPD's Transit District 20, Kelly said. They were on a quality-of-life sweep, looking for fare-beaters and drug pushers, in an F-line station at 21st St. and 41st Ave.
BY ALISON GENDAR, JONATHAN LEMIRE and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Updated Wednesday, October 22nd 2008, 12:39 AM
Two cops were shot in a Queens subway station Tuesday when a fare-beater they were trying to bust got his hands on one of their guns and started firing.
Bullets flew through the 21st St./Queensbridge subway station just after 5 p.m., sending terrified rush-hour commuters diving for cover and scrambling for the exits.
A veteran police lieutenant working nearby responded heroically, ending the wild gun battle by shooting the suspect four times, police said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the two wounded officers, Jason Maass, 28, and Shane Farina, 38, were lucky to be alive.
Kelly identified the suspect as Raul Nuñez, 32, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic who had been deported in 2001 on drug charges.
Nuñez told cops Tuesday night that he shot the officers in a brazen attempt to escape because he feared he would be deported again, a police source said.
Kelly said Nuñez began fighting with the two officers when they tried to handcuff him.
"All three went to the ground. During the struggle, one of the officer's guns came loose" from his holster, Kelly said. "Nuñez grabbed it, stood up and fired at both officers while they were on the ground."
He said Nuñez ran up an escalator, firing another shot at the wounded cops before losing a gunfight with a lieutenant, who had been supervising Maass and Farina on the subway station detail.
Maass, who joined the NYPD two years ago, was shot once in the back, and Farina, a four-year member of the force, was hit in the sternum, Kelly said.
Farina was undergoing surgery Tuesday night at Elmhurst Hospital Center. He was in critical but stable condition. Maass is expected to be released Wednesday.
Kelly said a bullet went through the cloth in the side of Farina's bulletproof vest, ripping into the officer's side, fracturing a rib and exiting his chest.
"I heard gunshots, and everyone just came running out of the subway," said Monique Robert, 29, of Queens, who was outside the Long Island City station when the underground shooting broke out.
The subway station is next to the Queensbridge Houses, the city's largest housing project.
"People were so scared," Robert said. "They just ran."
The wounded cops were both plainclothes members of the NYPD's Transit District 20, Kelly said. They were on a quality-of-life sweep, looking for fare-beaters and drug pushers, in an F-line station at 21st St. and 41st Ave.