3 cops shot in Bronx, Brooklyn

3 cops shot in Bronx, Brooklyn

Joe Marino/New York Daily News

Police officer is rushed into an ambulance en route to Lutheran Medical Center after he and another officer were shot at Fort Hamilton Parkway and 62 St. in Brooklyn on Thursday evening.

Three NYPD cops were shot in separate incidents an hour apart in the Bronx and Brooklyn Thursday night â€" one that left a gunman dead on a subway platform and an innocent straphanger wounded.

The three cops, all expected to make a full recovery, were the first officers shot in the new year, wounded three days after the NYPD closed a bloody 2012 in which a dozen cops were shot.

“As both these incidents illustrate, the historic crime reductions that New Yorkers enjoy come at a price,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters after the bloodshed.

“Thank God, three good guys â€" three New York City police officers, who acted heroically â€" are going to make it,” Mayor Bloomberg added, repeating his call for greater gun control. “But we owe it to the good guys to do whatever we can to protect them.”

“Tonight, separated by a single hour, three of New York’s Finest were injured by a gun in two different boroughs,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg added.

The back-to-back shootings, 25 miles apart, erupted after two men tried to hold up Officer Juan Pichardo’s family-owned car dealership in the Bronxdale section of the Bronx at 6:32 p.m., police said.

The suspects, with two accomplices waiting in a getaway car outside, told the off-duty cop at the Boston Road Auto Mall dealership that they were interested in buying a red Nissan Altima â€" but then one of them pulled a .380-caliber handgun and ordered everyone on the floor, sources said.

The two toughs, part of a crew being sought for other robberies in the area, began ransacking the office before Pichardo stood up and grabbed the gunman, police said.

During the struggle, the gunman squeezed off one shot, which tore through Pichardo’s right thigh, cops said.

“I heard two men arguing, angry at each other. Then I heard a gunshot,” said Alicia Edwards, 18, who lives behind the car dealership. “Then the shouting stopped.”

The bleeding cop â€" a nine-year veteran assigned to the 41st Precinct in Hunts Point â€" managed to help a co-worker hold down the gunman and take the pistol from his hand, Kelly said.

The three other suspects fled in a white Impala with Oregon plates, but were soon apprehended. Charges against them were pending early Friday.

“He was trying to sell a car, and he was stuck up,” said one of Pichardo’s employees, who gave his name only as Brian. “He’s a great boss, great person. He didn't deserve this.”

The wounded cop, a married father of three young children, was taken to Jacobi Medical Center. He was expected to survive.

Kelly and Bloomberg visited the hospital, where a swarm of cops had gathered.

But then, exactly an hour after Pichardo’s moment of bravery, the officers at the hospital got wind of a second shooting â€" this time two cops were wounded and a gunman dead on a Brooklyn subway platform.