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By Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — An NYPD cop involved in a fatal on-duty shooting last year died by suicide Thursday, the Daily News has learned.
The 22-year-old officer, who was assigned to the 60th Precinct in Coney Island, shot himself inside his Staten Island home about 1:45 a.m., police sources said.
First responders found the officer inside his Woodrow home and rushed him to Staten Island University Hospital North, where he died a short time later, police said.
The officer’s name was not immediately released.
The fallen officer is one of four cops who shot at Jermaine Hickson during a furious exchange of gunfire outside a Coney Island deli on Nov. 10, police sources said.
Hickson, 42, a Harlem resident, opened fire as soon as cops arrived at the scene and got off at least five shots at the officers, according to police sources and surveillance video recovered at the scene.
The dramatic confrontation started when Hickson threatened to shoot his girlfriend outside HL Gourmet Deli Grocery at W. 36th St. and Neptune Ave, police said.
As soon as an NYPD patrol car approached, he whirled around, raised the pistol that had been at his side and started firing.
His pistol raised at the police cruiser, Hickson fired off four rounds as he backed up onto the sidewalk behind a parked car, the video shows.
The two officers in the cruiser ducked behind their car doors before firing back, video shows.
[RELATED: Video: Gunman kept firing at NYPD officers even after he fell to the ground mortally wounded]
Hickson died at the scene, despite the best efforts of the cops to resuscitate him. One officer who fired back at Hickson broke down in tears afterwards and had to be brought around the corner, one witness told The News at the time.
The officer is the third cop to shoot himself in the last three months.
In February an NYPD officer shot himself in the face in the locker room of the 47th Precinct stationhouse in the Bronx in an apparent suicide attempt but survived, cops said.
In January an off-duty cop took his own life by shooting himself in a car near a park in Rosedale, Queens, cops said.
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