Shot In The Head During Bushwick Pursuit
A member of the NYPD’s Brooklyn North Anti-Crime Unit was shot and critically injured while pursuing a shooting suspect in Bushwick on Tuesday night, Jan. 31, police reported.
P.O. Kevin Brennan, 29, a 6 1/2- year veteran of the force, sustained a gunshot wound to his head while responding to a report of shots fired at the Bushwick Houses public housing complex in the vicinity of Moore Street and Bushwick Avenue at around 9 p.m. Tuesday night.
He was rushed to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he is listed in crit- ical but stable condition.
“He is one lucky man,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said of Officer Brennan during a press conference Tuesday night in which he showed most of the bullet that had been removed from the base of the officer’s skull by Bellevue Hospital surgeons.
The suspected shooter, identiifed by police as 21-year-old Luis Ortiz of Hewes Street in Williamsburg, was apprehended two hours later during a land-and-air search of the surrounding area by numerous NYPD units that responded to the incident. Kelly noted that Ortiz was wanted for questioning regarding a homicide in January.
Law enforcement sources said the trouble began at around 9 p.m. when Brennan and two other officers responded to a 911 call regarding shots fired on Moore Street. Upon their arrival, they spotted three individuals running away from a building.
Brennan and his colleagues reportedly pursued the suspects, one of which bolted into the rear of a building on Bushwick Avenue. Seconds later, Kelly noted, the suspect fired the shot which struck the officer in the head.
The officer was able to return fire, but the commissioner noted that neither the suspect nor anyone else was injured. Reportedly, the gunman was observed entering the fifth-floor of the Bushwick Avenue building.
Members of the 90th Precinct and other NYPD units responded to the scene. Brennan was assisted by his partners and then rushed by paramedics to Bellevue Hospital. Commissioner Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with the officer and his family members at the medical center.
Following a search of the surrounding area, Ortiz was taken into custody by police at another location on Bushwick Avenue a short distance from the scene where Brennan was shot. The gun allegedly used by the suspect was also recovered by police.
“[W]e have someone who’s dedicated his life to protecting all of us, who has had a much too close brush with death tonight because of what appears to be an illegal gun,” Bloomberg said at Tuesday’s press conference. “The news tonight is thankfully not tragic. But until our nation gets serious about taking guns off our streets, we can only hope that the news is as good the next time.”
Ortiz was charged with attempted murder of a police officer, assault on a police officer, criminal possession of a weapon and menacing.
