Person of interest in custody in shooting of off-duty NYPD officer from Deer Park, officials say

A 38-year-old person of interest in the shooting of an off-duty NYPD officer from Deer Park on Saturday in Brooklyn was taken into custody late Monday, law enforcement officials said.

The officials said a man from New York City was taken into custody in Rockland County. That followed an intense search that included a study of surveillance images and license plate reader data, according to police.

A spokesman for the NYPD couldn’t comment late Monday about the case or reports that a car that might have been used by the suspect to flee the Brooklyn crime scene had been found in Manhattan.

The 26-year-old wounded officer, who is married and the father of two, was shot in the head during an attempted robbery around 7 p.m. on Saturday by a suspect posing as the seller of a Honda Pilot advertised on an internet marketing forum, according to police. He was taken to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn.

A group of officers from the wounded cop’s 66th Precinct, as well as officers from the Muslim Officers Society, were keeping vigil at the hospital. The society members were praying for the injured officer and offering any support they could to his family, said deputy inspector Adeel Rama, head of the society.

The Saturday incident started when the officer and a relative arrived at the location by 472 Ruby St. in the Lindenwood section of Brooklyn. The suspect said it was a robbery and brandished a gun, according to a police account of the episode.

The encounter quickly escalated into a “exchange of gunfire,” which left the officer critically wounded in the head, according to police.

Some $25,000 in cash that was going to be used in the purchase of the car was not taken in the attempted robbery, said a police official.

The location where the incident occurred was just up the block from a once-overgrown area known to locals and law enforcement as “The Hole,” an area of low elevation that figured into a number of mob murders and burials in the 1980s. Once a forlorn and notorious spot on the Brooklyn-Queens border, the location of the shooting has gone through a revival with new home construction on Ruby Street.

The wounded officer has a record of 33 arrests in his brief career so far and was given an award for excellent police work, according to NYPD records.

On Monday, the NYPD announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspect.

By Anthony M. DeStefano

tony.destefano@newsday.comtonynewsday

Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.