By Denise M. Bonilla, Jonathan Mummolo and Sumathi Reddy, New York Newsday
A Suffolk County, New York police officer was shot in the abdomen Saturday in Huntington Station after struggling with a man who wrestled three officers to the ground, grabbed the officer’s gun and fired, police said.
Second Precinct Officer Michael Coscia, 26, was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he remained in stable condition undergoing tests last night.
Coscia, who police would only say lives in Nassau County, was wearing a bulletproof vest when he and the other officers responded to a 911 call about a man who took to the street after an altercation with his family. The impact of the bullet -- fired at point-blank range from Coscia’s 9-mm gun -- was enough to cause serious abdominal injuries, police said.
“We are very fortunate today that this officer is with us,” said Police Commissioner Richard Dormer at a news conference at the Second Precinct, where he held up a department-issued Kevlar vest, which police said saved Coscia’s life.
Officers Markus Rivera, 32, and Keith Mangels, 27, who also responded to the call, were treated at Huntington Hospital for minor cuts and bruises, police said.
At 1:44 p.m. police responded to a call from relatives of Jerell Harris, 22, who police said used to live in Huntington Station but now has no known address. Harris was waving a large stick and acting erratically on the corner of West 11th Street and New York Avenue, down the street from where his relatives lived, police said.
Police said that they tried to calm him down, but Harris was screaming and punching the officers and engaged them in a struggle. When the officers tried to arrest him, Harris grabbed Coscia’s gun, shot him once in the lower abdomen and shot a second time at another officer but missed.
Harris was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree attempted murder, three counts of second-degree assault, and one count each of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, police said. Harris, who police said has a lengthy history of arrests dating to at least 1999, was being held overnight and will be arraigned today.
Dormer said Coscia -- who has been a police officer for nearly four years and patrols the Huntington Station area -- appeared shaken up by the incident.
Coscia’s relatives along with Dormer and Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy visited the officer at Stony Brook yesterday.
“We are all breathing a sigh of relief,” Levy said. “We know what could have been. Thank God the vest saved his life.”
Dormer said the incident highlights the danger officers face every day. “This incident should point out to all of us how a mundane call from 911 can turn into a deadly confrontation.”