NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Officials say an NYPD officer who was shot multiple times while responding to a call in Brooklyn is alive thanks to his bulletproof vest. The officer, identified by CBS2 sources as 30-year-old Hart Nguyen, was recovering in the hospital Friday morning. Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Thursday that the officer has been on the force for just over two years. “Thank goodness, the officer is going to be fine,” he said. “They said recovery is going to take a while, but I saw the injuries, I spoke to him, spoke to his partner and they’re going to be fine, may take a little time though.” It all began Thursday afternoon when the officer from the 75th precinct was responding to a call about an emotionally disturbed man on Ridgewood Avenue in Cypress Hills. “The caller reported that her 29-year-old son was not violent, reported to be unarmed and present with her in the home,” O’Neill said. When the officer approached the back of the home with EMS, police said the suspect, identified as 29-year-old Andy Sookdeo, fired three times, striking him in the arm once and twice in the bulletproof vest. “This vest definitely saved his life,” O’Neill said. Police say after being hit, the officer did not return fire. Sookdeo then barricaded himself in the home for hours. “What could have been just another day, just another call, turned into something much worse,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. When the Emergency Services Unit made it inside, they found Sookdeo dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound with two guns laying by his side, along with ammunition. Neighbor Amil Pooni says he often saw the man sitting outside. “If you talk to him, he like, ‘I’m stressed out,’” he said. “If you ask him what’s the problem, he never tell you.” He can’t make sense of what happened. “I don’t know what get to his head and what gets to his mind to do these things,” Pooni said. “We’ve never seen an outburst from the family or from the son,” another neighbor said. “If something would have happened prior to this then we would have known, ‘OK this is Andy and this is what’s going on,’ but we’ve never heard of anything. I feel bad for the cop, but I also can’t say that his family is horrible, cause they’re a good family.” As for the officer, he was rushed to Jamaica Hospital and is already on the mend. He’s expected to be released from the hospital Friday. “He had a great attitude trying to make light of the situation in his own hospital bed,” de Blasio said. The police commissioner said the officer’s partner was also shaken up.
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NYPD Officer Recovering After Being Shot, Wounded In Brooklyn
