By John Annese
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — An NYPD officer fired a shot at a suspected Porsche thief on the Belt Parkway on Sunday after the driver tried to mow down a cop on the highway.
The drama started about 6:40 a.m. after police got a report of someone stealing a catalytic converter from a vehicle on Knapp St. near Avenue V in Sheepshead Bay.
Officers from the 61st Precinct tried to stop a white Porsche sedan that fit a description from the crime scene, but the driver fled onto the Belt Parkway, cops said.
Those officers didn’t pursue the car, but others from the 60th Precinct blocked westbound traffic on the highway to corner the driver.
The runaway Porshe driver, however, barreled toward the officers, squeezing through traffic and hitting other vehicles in the process, cops said.
That’s when one of the cops fired a single shot, apparently hitting the fleeing car’s tire, a police source said.
Cops found the Porsche abandoned with a flat tire on Cropsey Ave., a few blocks from Exit 4 on the highway, police said.
[RELATED: Should police shoot at moving vehicles?]
NYPD policy forbids officers from shooting at moving vehicles unless something other than the vehicle is used as a weapon, but a “carveout” allows the department to review those shootings on a case-by-case basis, Chief of Department Kenneth Corey told reporters last month after police shot and critically wounded a teenage driver heading toward a police officer on March 7.
Blocking the highway was a tactic used to prevent a high-speed chase; catalytic converter thefts are on the rise in New York, one high-ranking source said.
One officer was taken to an area hospital for observation, but no one was injured in the incident, which cops were still investigating, police said.
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