By Tina Kelley, The New York Times
Two police detectives were shot to death last night during an undercover gun investigation in Staten Island, a senior police official said last night.
The shootings, which occurred about 8 p.m. at Hannah Street and Saint Pauls Avenue in Tompkinsville, set off an intense manhunt as more than a hundred police officers swarmed the scene, blocked off roads nearby, and searched vehicles leaving Richmond County. Advertisement
This morning, the police said they were questioning two people in connection with the shootings and looking for a third, Omar Green, 18.
The killings represented the first time in more than 13 years that two New York City police officers had been fatally shot on the same day while on duty.
Law enforcement officials, providing a preliminary account of the killings, said that the detectives had arranged to meet with men in Staten Island to make an undercover gun purchase.
The detectives were driving a leased black Maxima as they went to buy a new Tec-9, a high-powered semiautomatic pistol favored by drug dealers, for $1,200, a senior police official said. They spoke by cellphone to a man named Omar to arrange the deal, then met two other men outside 67 Hill Street, the official said. Those two men got into the car and began telling the detectives where to drive to conclude the deal.
As the car drove through the streets of the Stapleton neighborhood, four backup cars followed, and apparently lost sight of the Maxima. The backup team searched the area frantically for the car, street by street.
Meanwhile, the men in the car apparently shot both investigators in the head and pushed them out of the car, the senior official said.
The detectives still had the money to buy the gun, and their own guns were still in their holsters, suggesting they never had a chance to react, the senior official said. At least one of the detectives was shot in the back of the head, the official said.
One witness told the police he saw the detectives’ bodies being dragged out of the car, the official said.
Investigators this morning were questioning two men, one in a bloody shirt, and were seeking Mr. Green, whom they believe to be the man the detectives talked to about buying the pistol, the official said. It was unclear whether Mr. Green was present at the time of the shooting.
The killers drove the car a short distance and abandoned it, the senior official said. The backup team found the two detectives lying in the street. They were taken to St. Vincent’s Staten Island Hospital and pronounced dead.
Police Chief Raymond W. Kelly and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg rushed to the hospital after the shootings, as did the detectives’ families.
One detective, 34, is divorced with two children. The other, 36, is married and has three children. The police did not release their names early this morning, but said both had been on the force seven and a half years.
“Tonight is a tragic night for our Police Department and the whole city,” Mayor Bloomberg said at a news conference early this morning. “They did what so many of our police officers do every day in the course of protecting the lives of eight million people. They deliberately put themselves in harm’s way to protect the rest of us.”
He added, “The department and the city will not rest until those who have performed this barbaric act are found.”
Last night about 9 p.m., Bill Haun, who lives on Hannah Street near where the shootings took place, said that officers were standing about 30 feet from his door.
“When I looked out the door, they were performing CPR on someone who looked like a police officer, in the back of an ambulance,” he said.
Mr. Haun said that the police had closed off Hannah Street, and that there was at least one police helicopter overhead. Mr. Haun described the neighborhood of mostly private homes as fairly rough. “It probably has one of the more high crime rates in Staten Island,” he said.
Within minutes of the shooting, outbound traffic was halted on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and restricted on the Goethals and Bayonne Bridges and the Outerbridge Crossing as vehicles were searched, the police said.
The 9 p.m. Staten Island ferry to Manhattan was turned back just short of Battery Park because the police thought a suspect in the killings or a witness might be on board.
People were let off the ferry two at a time once it returned to Staten Island, said Mary Ellen Carney, 19, who was on the ferry. She said officers were looking for a 6-foot-2 black man.
The police searched a nearby public housing project in the Stapleton section for suspects last night.
One tenant at the eight-story building, at 67 Warren Street, said the police had announced over a megaphone that no one was to enter or leave the building. The tenant said her 13-year-old sister and 16-year-old brother were both barred from returning to their apartment and had called up to the window to say they would be at a friend’s house.
“I’m kind of nervous now,” the woman said. “I didn’t hear anything or see anything but the police are being real serious about this - there are lights flashing all over.”
Most of the other tenants who were called last night said they had no knowledge of either the shootings or police activity in their building. “Well, I’m certainly not going out now,” one resident said.
A $20,000 cash reward for information leading to convictions in the case was offered by COP SHOT, a group of businesses. The police are asking anyone with information about the shootings to call (800) 577-TIPS.