1 wounded NYPD officer to leave hospital

Police say the gunman also shot Officer Diara Cruz in the stomach below her bulletproof vest.

Two New York police officers were shot on Thursday at a public housing project and are in stable condition, a police spokeswoman said.

An NYPD officer from Brewster received cheers upon his release from a Bronx hospital Friday after being shot in the face. 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.

Authorities in the Florida Panhandle say a Missouri couple suspected in a series of robberies and abductions in Alabama and Georgia have been found and the man is dead and the woman taken into custody early Friday.

In the hectic first moments after the shooting, officers rushed to the scene, searching for suspects by air and ground, as housing residents wondered what had happened. The unnamed third officer was not injured.

As they were reaching the top landing, Chavis turned and fired three rounds, striking them both.

Responding officers found the suspect dead in an apartment where a.32-caliber pistol and a shotgun were recovered.

“There were a lot of gunshots”, a resident of the complex, Kendrick Joseph, told the New York Post. “I ain’t going back”, to Fagnani who was inside the apartment.

“It was really bloody”, he said.

He was wheeled out of Lincoln Hospital through hundreds of officers, including NYPD Commissioner Bratton. “So we are praying for the best here”.

When word got to de Blasio about the shooting Thursday night, he was already in the Bronx at Lehman College for his State of the City speech, less than five miles away. In these remarks, de Blasio extensively praised the city’s police force, saying he was “so proud of the extraordinary work” done by the department.

“So far, in both cases, their condition is good”, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday night.

The gunman, Malik Chavis, 23, killed himself after the attack, police said.

Officer Patrick Espeut was struck in the cheek.

Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce called Thursday’s patrol “routine” and said that the stairwell was well-lit.

The NYPD says three officers were patrolling a building on East 156th Street around 8 p.m. when they came across two men in the stairwell.