Police shoot 19-year-old suspect in leg after pointing gun at officer in the Bronx
SOUNDVIEW, The Bronx (WABC) -- A 19-year-old suspect was shot in the leg after pointing his gun at an officer responding to a dispute in the Bronx on Friday, according to NYPD officials.
It happened near a high-rise building located at 755 White Plains Road in Soundview just after 3 p.m.
Police say an officer and sergeant responded to the location for a report of a large dispute involving a firearm.
When they arrived at the rear of the location, they encountered two people. Body camera footage shows a suspect pull out his weapon and point it at the officers.
The suspect was then shot twice by police in the left leg.
Police then rendered aid, took him into custody and transported him to Jacobi Hospital, where he's expected to be okay.
Meanwhile, police are still looking for a second man who was with the suspect at the time of the incident. He fled on Lafayette Avenue, and was described as wearing grey sweatpants and a white hoodie.
NYPD officials say the suspect did not get off any shots, and no officers were injured.
A gun and two knives were recovered at the scene.
Eyewitness News was told the the suspect, who is 19 years old, is a reputed gang member with several prior arrests. Officials say he was arrested and indicted in September for possession of a loaded firearm. Prosecutors requested $25,000 bail, but the suspect got supervised release instead and was back on the street.
"This is the second time this week, we have someone walking around the community of the Bronx, in the Soundview section, with a semi-automatic weapon who was arrested three months ago in the streets of Manhattan and indicted... this probably shouldn't have happened," said NYPD Patrol Bureau Chief John Chell.
It comes just several days after police confronted a suspect armed with a deadly weapon in Queens on Tuesday night.
The suspect in that incident was involved in two gunpoint robberies before he was shot and killed during a shootout with police.
During a briefing on Friday evening, Chell expressed frustration with the criminal justice system after another suspect with a criminal history was let back onto the streets.
"Our criminal justice system needs to be fixed, you saw it this week with the three people stabbed around the street, you saw it in Queens where our cops confronted a career criminal on life-time parole, who just committed two robberies that night, fired at people, citizen gets involved and shoots our officer in the leg," Chell said. "We are very frustrated. We have to fix this."
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