New details emerged Sunday in the robbery that left an off-duty NYPD cop clinging to life, including how the victim’s relative pulled the ailing officer’s gun from his holster to return fire, police sources said.
Cops are still hunting the gunman, who critically wounded the officer in a Facebook Marketplace ambush in Brooklyn on Saturday evening.
The cop, a 26-year-old father of two, had accompanied his brother-in-law to an East New York address around 7 p.m. because the relative hoped to buy a car, sources said.
The pair, who had about $24,000 in cash on them, were lured down a dark driveway at 472 Ruby St. supposedly to check out the vehicle when the armed suspect announced the stick-up and pulled out a gun “almost immediately,” police and sources said.
Investigators believe the same criminal was behind a similar incident on the same block Jan. 13.
The suspect fired, and the badly wounded officer collapsed. His brother-in-law then pulled the ailing Finest’s gun from his holster and shot at the crook, sources said.
It is unclear if the relative struck the suspect, who fled in a BMW and may have had an accomplice behind the wheel of his getaway car, sources said.
The wounded officer — a five-year veteran of the force whose name is being withheld by The Post, pending official release — took a bullet to the head and is on life support at Brookdale Hospital, where dozens of relatives and members of New York’s Finest were gathered.
In the other recent Facebook Marketplace robbery, the victim showed up on the corner of Dumont Avenue and Ruby Street around 7:10 p.m. that Friday to make a purchase when the crook pulled a gun and demanded, “I know you brought money,” according to sources.
The robber made off with $18,000 in that case, the sources said.
“We will catch the person responsible for this act,” Mayor Eric Adams told reporters at the hospital Saturday night, referring to Saturday’s tragedy. “An officer conducting a simple errand and a dangerous person pulled out a firearm.
“As we see so often in this city, too many illegal guns are in the hands of bad people and doing bad things,” the mayor said.
In addition to the Jan. 13 incident, two other Facebook Marketplace ambushes took place in the city last year, including the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old Rockland County man who responded to an ad for a motorcycle in the Bronx in May. The crimes are not believed to be linked to Saturday’s shooting.
In October, federal prosecutors announced that a pair of Bronx teenagers separately used the online ad ruse to lure victims into robberies and carjackings.
