One of the police officers shot in the stairwell of a Bronx public housing project Thursday night was released from the hospital Friday, authorities said.
NYPD officer Patrick Espeut was struck in the cheek as he and officer Diara Cruz performed a vertical patrol in the Melrose Houses in the South Bronx Thursday night.
He was be released from Lincoln Hospital Friday at 4 p.m. to applause from fellow officers. He was rolled out of the medical center in a wheelchair but stood up once he made it to the end of the sidewalk. As he got into an NYPD van to leave the facility, he gave a thumbs up to his fellow officers and members of the media.
Cruz was hit in the stomach and will remain in the hospital, authorities said.
Espeut and Cruz encountered suspected gunman Malik Chavis, 23, in the sixth-floor stairwell at about 8 p.m., police said. Chavis allegedly opened fire at the officers before running to a seventh-floor apartment and turning the gun on himself, shouting that he just had just shot a cop and didn't want to go back to jail, witnesses told police.
He had 16 prior arrests for crimes including attempted robbery, weapon possession and various drug crimes, and there was an open warrant for criminal possession of controlled substance, according to police reports. He served three years for a robbery charge and violated parole twice, according to state correction records. Police said he apparently shot himself in the head with the same weapon he used to fire at the officers.
The .32-caliber handgun had been purchased legally in Tennessee in 2010 and was never reported missing, according to police reports. The handgun and a shotgun were found inside the apartment, police said.
The second person who encountered the officers in the stairwell was taken into custody, and three people in the apartment were questioned, but police said no arrests have been made.
The shooting happened about 5 miles from where Mayor Bill de Blasio was delivering his State of the City address Thursday night, much of which was dedicated to praising the work of police officers.
De Blasio, a was told about the shooting as he finished his speech and left the stage. He met with the family of one of the officers at the hospital.
"Our brave officers were doing their jobs tonight in our public housing on patrol keeping residents safe,'' de Blasio said. "Both officers are alert and communicating, and we are praying for the best here.''
The officers are assigned to the Housing Bureau and have been on the force for about two years. They were shot while they were conducting a vertical patrol, where officers start in the lobby of a public housing project and walk the stairwells up to the roof and back down.
In January, a police officer responding to a large street fight in the Bronx was shot in an ankle. And in October, a police officer responding to a report of shots fired and a bicycle stolen at gunpoint in Manhattan's East Harlem neighborhood was killed.
There was no number listed at the address for Chavis, or any of his prior addresses.
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch said the shooting is further proof of how dangerous vertical patrols can be.
“The simple truth is that there is nothing ‘routine’ about ‘routine vertical patrol’ in our city’s housing projects. Police officers Espeut and Cruz were shot while performing a vertical patrol that they have both done countless times before without incident," Lynch said in a statement.
