By Howard Koplowitz and Jeremy Walsh
An off-duty police detective who tested above the legal limit for alcohol and was suspended from duty after shooting a man in the leg while breaking up an assault on a St. Albans street has been returned to duty, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Wednesday.
Detective Ivan Davison shot 22-year-old Stephon Allston early Sunday morning after the man refused to drop a gun he was carrying, police said.
“At grave personal risk … Davison took appropriate and courageous police action to end an imminent threat of death or serious injury to himself and others,” Kelly said, noting witness accounts vindicated the detective's actions.
Davison, identified in the Post as a 44-year-old detective with Brooklyn South Narcotics, was with a group of friends waiting to enter a club on Linden Boulevard near Farmers Boulevard around 2 a.m. Sunday when he saw a group of men beating up another man, police said.
After Davison broke up the fight, Allston, 22, allegedly brandished a TEC-9 at the off-duty detective and disobeyed orders to drop the weapon, police said.
The detective then fired at the suspect, hitting him in the leg, police said.
Davison was forced to take a Breathalyzer test as part of the change in police policy following the November 2006 shooting of Rockaway resident Sean Bell, which mandated alcohol tests for officers who shoot at and hit a person. Bell was killed in a barrage of 50 bullets fired by undercover detectives.
Davison narrowly failed the Breathalyzer test with a .10 blood-alcohol content, the Post said. The legal limit is .08.
“We said from the beginning that it would be possible to have cases where officers might test positive for alcohol use, and also be found to have taken appropriate police action,” Kelly said. “This is the first such case.”
Two St. Albans elected officials defended the officer despite the report that he was legally drunk.
“He prevented more people from getting hurt,” said City Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans). “I applaud the officer for taking the automatic weapon and preventing the TEC-9 from being sprayed throughout the neighborhood.”
State Assemblyman William Scarborough (D-St. Albans) agreed.
“It sounds like the officer did the right thing,” the assemblyman said.
Allston, of 64 Grassmere Terrace in Far Rockaway, was arrested Monday and charged with attempted murder, police said.
A second man, Rasheem Anderson, of 199th Street in Queens , was also arrested and charged with gang assault.
Anderson was allegedly with Allston at Franklin General Hospital in Valley Stream, L.I., where Allston was being treated for the gunshot wound, police said.
Reach reporter Howard Koplowitz by e-mail at hkoplowitz@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 173.
