NEW YORK (AP) — An off-duty New York City police officer was shot in the left foot Saturday as he was leaving a vigil at a Manhattan community center, police said. It was the seventh time an NYPD officer has been shot this year.
The shooting happened around 4:30 p.m. near Broadway and 130th Street in the borough’s Manhattanville neighborhood. The officer was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside hospital in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery, police said.
Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, head of the NYPD’s Housing Bureau, said the officer saw two men firing gunshots as he was leaving the building and appeared to have been struck as he was diving for cover.
Maddrey said it wasn’t clear if the officer said anything to the men or identified himself as a police officer. No arrests have been made.
Maddrey said the officer, who’s assigned to policing housing complex in the Bronx, didn’t realize he was wounded until a few minutes later when he felt pain in his foot while assisting responding officers with a description of the suspects.
On Tuesday, an off-duty officer was shot in the shoulder during an attempted robbery as he was driving to work in the Rockaway section of Queens.
Last month, two officers were fatally wounded while responding to a domestic dispute call at a Harlem apartment.
“This is very painful. It’s very hurtful. Our people and our communities, our neighborhoods, we shouldn’t have to live like this,” Maddrey said. “We should be able to walk freely. We should be able to shop and do the things that we love and we shouldn’t have to worry about gun violence.”