An NYPD officer was shot in the back in Brooklyn Thursday night, but was saved by a bulletproof vest.
The officer, who is assigned to the 77th Precinct, was responding to a domestic incident at the time of the shooting. He was taken to Kings County Hospital to be treated and released a few hours later.
At a news conference at the hospital in the wee hours of Christmas morning, Mayor Bill de Blasio deplored the violence on what should have been a peaceful holiday.
"A man threatened his girlfriend, threatened her violently, said he was coming to do her harm. That's what happened tonight in Brooklyn. And because the NYPD was there that woman is alive right now," De Blasio said.
Commissioner Dermot Shea said a mother called 911 repeatedly just before 9 p.m., asking for police help to keep her daughter's boyfriend from hurting her. As the officers interviewed the daughter, the suspect arrived and began firing, Shea said.
The officer, 27 years old and with about two years of service, was struck once, but the bullet was stopped by the vest and did not break the skin.
A team of officers fired several rounds at the suspect and chased after him on foot for a couple blocks before the man surrendered to police, the commissioner explained. The suspect, identified by police sources as William Moss, was taken into custody without injury.
Shea said police had records of at least one prior domestic incident between the suspect and his girlfriend.
Video from the scene showed what appeared to be multiple shell casings on the ground, and a heavy multi-agency law enforcement response.
