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By Anthony M. Destefano
Newsday
NEW YORK — A bit of luck - and his bulletproof vest - saved the life of New York police Officer Herman Yan when he and his partner Russel Timoshenko were shot during an early-morning traffic stop in Crown Heights on July 9, 2007.
Yan suffered an arm wound but a 9-mm bullet aimed at his chest was stopped by his protective body armor, leaving him badly bruised but alive. He even managed to return fire at the assailants driving a stolen BMW on Rogers Avenue.
However, Timoshenko, hit twice in the face by shots from a .45 caliber handgun, crumpled to the street. The mortal wounds left him unable to breathe as he lay in an expanding pool of his blood. Five days later Timoshenko died in Kings County Hospital Center.
Today Yan, now a detective, is expected to recall the shooting in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn as one of the first witnesses to take the stand in trial of three men accused of murder and attempted murder.
“It will certainly be traumatic for him to relive what occurred in the street on the witness stand,” said Michael Palladino, head of the Detective Endowment Association. “But he obviously has the backbone and character to have survived what occurred in the street and I am sure he will be able to articulate himself purposefully on the witness stand.”
Jurors in the trial of the three suspects - Dexter Bostic, 36, Robert Ellis, 35, and Lee Woods, 30 - are also expected to see a dramatic surveillance video that captured the shooting and the subsequent flight of the BMW.
All three defendants are on trial before separate juries in an arrangement that is unusual for the Brooklyn court.
Judge Plummer Lott empaneled separate juries because the defendants have conflicting defenses and gave statements to police that incriminated each other. At times, only one defendant will be in court with the jury for his particular case.
Because the shooting is a common element against all defendants, three juries are expected to be in court when Yan testifies and the black and white video is played.
Prosecutors contend that Bostic, who had been employed at the Long Island car dealership from where the BMW was taken, fired the shots that killed Timoshenko.
Prosecutor Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi said in her opening statements Monday that it was Ellis who fired at Yan with a 9-mm handgun and that Woods was the driver.
However, defense attorneys for Ellis and Woods each contend that it was their client who was the driver and thus not responsible for any of the shooting.
Immediately after the shooting, Bostic and Ellis fled the metropolitan area, taking a ferry from Long Island to Connecticut and then being driven to Pennsylvania where they hoped to hide out in a wooded area for two months, according to investigators.
But in the face of a massive investigation and manhunt, both suspects were caught July 11 after being spotted walking along Interstate 80 in the Pocono area.
Woods remained in the Far Rockaway area after the shooting and gave conflicting statements to police, eventually admitting that he was in the BMW when the shootings occurred and was forced to drive away when Ellis put a gun to his head, Nicolazzi said.
Copyright 2008 Newsday