2 NYPD officers responding to shooting are grazed by bullets

NEW YORK (AP) - Two New York City police officers were grazed by bullets in a shootout with a man who had just shot his roommate in both legs, police officials said Monday.

The initial shooting happened around 9 p.m. Sunday in a second-floor apartment in the Prospect-Lefferts Garden neighborhood of Brooklyn, the officials said at a news briefing.

Three officers and a sergeant arrived at the shooting scene and had to walk single file up a narrow flight of stairs to get to the shooting victim’s apartment, Chief of Department Rodney Harrison said.

A man emerged from the apartment with a blanket over his head, Harrison said. After exchanging some words with the officers, the man pulled a .38-caliber revolver from under the blanket, the chief said.

Harrison said the man “ignored the multiple commands” and fired three times at the officers, who were about 10 feet away.

The officer closest to the gunman turned his body to the side and a bullet grazed his bulletproof vest, struck his body-worn camera magnet and lodged itself inside his jacket, Harrison said. The fourth officer in the line was grazed in the shin by the other bullet, he said.

The sergeant and one of the police officers each fired multiple times at the gunman, but he was able to retreat inside the apartment and barricade himself, Harrison said.

The gunman was taken into custody after hostage negotiators were called, police said. They did not immediately release the man’s name or the charges against him.

The gunman’s roommate was taken to a hospital for treatment of gunshot wounds to both legs, Harrison said. He was in stable condition, officials said.

The two officers who were grazed by bullets were taken to another hospital.

“By the grace of God our heroic officers will be going home,” Harrison said.

Police officials showed surveillance video and body-camera video of the encounter at the briefing at police headquarters.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said the incident shows how officers have to make “split-second decisions.” He alluded to other cases of officers being fired at while performing their jobs and said, “We have seen this far too often lately.”

Three firearms were recovered from the gunman’s apartment, police said.