NEW YORK _ A 41-year-old NYPD police sergeant from Huntington, Long Island, was shot and killed while another officer was wounded during a shootout in the Van Nest section of the Bronx on Friday afternoon which left the suspect dead, officials said.
Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo was taken off life support at Jacobi Medical Center and pronounced dead late Friday after he suffered a grievous head wound during a shooting at the intersection of Bronx River Avenue and Noble Avenue, said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio
"The city is in mourning, and the family of the NYPD is in mourning, particularly all the men and women of the 43rd Precinct," de Blasio said during a brief news conference late Friday at the hospital to announced Tuozzolo's death, which he called a "murder."
Sgt. Emmanuel Kwo, 30, who was with Tuozzolo, suffered a leg wound and was expected to survive. Tuozzolo, a father of two, was a 19-year veteran of the New York Police Department and had spent the past 10 years at the 43rd Precinct, where the shooting took place, officials said.
"I always talk about what a great job this is, but there is nothing worse than a day like today," NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill said.
DeBlasio said he and O'Neill had to break the news to Tuozzolo's wife and family and found it emotionally wrenching.
The man shot dead by cops in the shooting was identified as Manuel S. Rosales, 35, of Brentwood. O'Neill said he had 17 previous arrests in Suffolk County.
As described by O'Neill, events began to unravel about 2:45 p.m. when a 911 call was received about an armed man breaking into a dwelling on Beach Avenue. The suspect fled the location in a red Jeep and was found in his vehicle outside 1575 Bronx River Rd. at 2:52 p.m., about a half mile away from the apartment, said O'Neill. An armed Rosales exited the car and fired at the officers with a .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun with officers then returning fire and in the fusillade Tuozzolo and Emmanuel Kwo were struck, O'Neill said.
According to O'Neill, the initial incident on Beach Avenue may have involved a domestic dispute. Living at the location was Rosales's estranged 29-year-old wife and her two children, as well as a 50-year-old woman who made the 911 call, said the commissioner.
Scores of NYPD officers canvassed the area around the shooting scene, with detectives knocking on doors and uniformed cops conducting a line search for evidence.
Shakira Hatim, who lives on Bronx River Avenue where the shooting occurred, returned to her home Friday night in tears.
"The police officer got shot, it's very upsetting," she said, crying. "The officers protect us."
She learned about the shooting when she came home from work to find her street blocked and a flood of officers. She planned to spend the night elsewhere.
"It's so upsetting," said Hatim, 47, a child care worker. "This is sad _ right in front of my house."
Ed Mullins, the head of the sergeants union who knew Tuozzolo, said: "Paul has left behind two small children" under age 5.
"What occurred here today was the result of police officers protecting a woman who was afraid of her own husband and unfortunately, Sergeant Tuozzolo lost his life," Mullins said. "To the men and women in the NYPD I ask that they keep their head up. Things will get better."
Rosales had been at the Bronx home Thursday night "threatening to kill the spouse and was back today," Mullins said. "He had two weapons. When police showed up ... he was gone."
Pat Lynch, head of NYPD rank-and-file union, said the officer who shot the suspect was a 25-year-old rookie who had been on the street in field training for just three days. "His training kicked in. He saw a gun come out that window and rounds start being fired and fellow police officers, a sergeant, go down. He responded like a professional with 30 years, meanwhile he has three days. He did well."
In Brentwood on Friday, Manuel Rosales, who identified himself as the suspect's dad, stood outside his home smoking a cigarette, shortly before he found out about his son's death.
"It looks like they killed my son, but ... this is the product of this country," he said in Spanish. He explained that he tried to stop his son from misbehaving when he was still young and had run-ins with the law, but judges were too permissive. "Even when parents want to help the children, the system is in bad shape ... when he was 16 a judge told me that he was emancipated and I couldn't tell him what to do."
Rosales didn't specify what unlawful incidents his son had been involved in, but he said his son was having custody and visitation issues over his 2-year-old son, who lives with his mother in the Bronx.
Rosales said he believed that was the reason cops were called about his son, who was 36, not any robbery attempt.
"She took their child to the Bronx and put an order of protection on him because she was using the child to fight him," said Rosales, who owns a small construction company.
Tuozzolo's death comes days after the shooting deaths of two police officers in Des Moines, Iowa.
The sergeant is the fifth line of duty death suffered by the NYPD since December 2014. It was then that Detectives Wenjian Liu, 32 and Rafael Ramos, 40, were gunned down by Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, 28, as they sat in a patrol car in Brooklyn on Dec. 20. Brinsley fled to the subway where he committed suicide.
Six months later, Detective Brian Moore, 25, of Plainedge was killed after he was shot in the head during a street stop in Queens Village. In October 2015, Detective Randolph Holder, 32, was gunned down along the FDR Drive in Manhattan while he was pursuing a suspect in a shooting. Criminal cases against suspects in the Moore and Holder killings are pending.
"This heartbreaking incident puts into clear focus both the difficulties our police officers face every day and the true scourge of guns and gun violence faced by our police, our communities and our nation," Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said Friday after the death of Tuozzolo.
The mayor's office announced Friday night that all flags on New York City building would fly at half staff until Tuozzolo's interment.
