Gunman ambushes New York police twice in 12 hours

A gunman is in custody after he ambushed cops in the Bronx twice in 12 hours, wounding two in attacks that ignited outrage from officials who blamed the violence on an atmosphere of anti-police rhetoric.

The man, whose name had not been immediately released, was captured after he walked right into a police station in the Bronx and started shooting shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday. His shots struck a lieutenant in the arm and narrowly missed other police personnel before he ran out of bullets, lay out and tossed his pistol.

That attack came just hours following the same man approached a patrol van in the same the main Bronx and fired at two officers inside, wounding one before escaping by walking, police said.

Despite multiple shots fired in both incidents, nobody was killed, and all are likely to recover, police said.

"It is merely by the grace of God and the heroic actions of these inside building that took him into custody that people are not discussing police officers murdered inside a New York City police precinct,” Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said at a news conference.

The officer injured in the first shooting, Paul Stroffolino, premiered from the hospital Sunday to applause from a big contingent of fellow officers. The officer, a bandage noticeable on his neck, gave a thumbs-up to the crowd.

Shea called the gunman a “coward" and said he had a lengthy criminal background, including a 2002 shooting and carjacking where he also fired a gun at cops. Shea said the person was paroled from prison in 2017 after an attempted murder conviction.

The commissioner also lashed out at criminal justice reform activists who've held demonstrations against excessive force by police in recent months, including a huge protest in Grand Central Terminal. He suggested the protests helped create an anti-police environment.

“These things aren't unrelated. We had people marching through the streets of NEW YORK recently,” Shea said. “Words matter. And words affect people's behavior.”

Shea didn't offer any evidence that the gunman in this weekend's attacks knew of these protests or was influenced by them.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who won office partly on a promise to reform overly aggressive policing of minority communities, also suggested that anti-police sentiment had gotten beyond control.

“Anyone who spews hatred at our officers is aiding and abetting this kind of atmosphere; it isn't acceptable," de Blasio said. “You could protest for whatever you genuinely believe in, but you cannot vilely attack those who are here to protect us. It generates this sort of dynamic.”

The attacks recalled other unprovoked assaults on cops sitting in their patrol vehicles.

In 2017, a gunman killed Officer Miosotis Familia as she sat in her patrol vehicle in the Bronx. In 2014, two officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were shot dead within their patrol car in Brooklyn by a man upset about recent police killings of unarmed black men.

The killings of Ramos and Liu had also followed large street protests plus some officers blamed de Blasio for expressing solidarity with the demonstrations, and turned their backs on the Democrat at the funerals.

Robert Gangi, executive director of the authorities Reform Organizing Project advocacy group, said it was “irresponsible" for Shea and de Blasio to state the violence this weekend was linked to the recent demonstrations, which he said involved activists "protesting in the best fashion."

Of the gunman, though, Gangi said there is “no defense for a lunatic who opens fire on police."

The first attack happened right before 8:30 p.m. Saturday, when the gunman walked up to the van asking the officers for directions and then fired shots, grazing Stroffolino, who was simply when driving, in the chin and neck and narrowly missing an artery.

Stroffolino and his partner for eight years, Brian Hanlon, a pal since middle school, hit the gas to escape. Neither fired a go.

Police released an image of the suspected shooter and were combing metropolis for him when he walked in to the police station coordinating the manhunt, strolled to the desk and pulled a gun. The wounded lieutenant returned fire but missed, and police personnel dashed out of an adjoining room just with time in order to avoid the pursuing gunman. Two security camera systems captured video of the chaotic scene.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a tweet Sunday he was “horrified by the multiple attacks” on police.

“NY's law enforcement officers put their lives at risk each day to keep us safe," he wrote. "These attacks are heinous."

President Donald Trump immediately used the shootings to assail New York’s Democratic mayor and governor.

“I was raised in NEW YORK and, over many years, surely got to watch how GREAT NYC’s ‘Finest’ are. Now, as a result of weak leadership at Governor & Mayor, stand away (water thrown at them) regulations, and insufficient support, our wonderful NYC police are under assault. Stop this now!” he tweeted.

The attacks happened in the Bronx's 41st Precinct, a once crime-plagued district whose former headquarters was infamously branded “Fort Apache" and was the main topic of a 1981 film starring Paul Newman.

Recently, though, a nearby has gotten much safer. There were five killings reported in all of this past year and 164 robberies, down from 44 killings and 1,095 robberies in 1990.