NYPD cop shot in the face while inside police vehicle in the Bronx, suspect killed

An NYPD officer is in critical condition after being shot in the face while inside a police vehicle in the Bronx early Wednesday, police said.

The shooting took place near 183rd St. and Creston Ave. around 12:30 a.m. while the female officer was in a mobile command post, Commissioner James O’Neill said

in a press briefing at St. Barnabas Hospital.

O’Neill said the gunman fired one round, striking the 12-year police veteran in head during the “unprovoked attack.”

Her partner frantically screamed into his police radio for help.

“Shots fired!” the officer can be heard shouting moments after the gunfire rang out.

“I need a f-----g bus! 10-85 10-85! My partner’s shot! My partner’s shot! My partner’s shot! Hurry up central!”

The officer was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital in “extremely critical condition.”

A police source said another cop was also being treated at St. Barnabas for trauma.

Gunfire also struck an innocent bystander in the stomach. The victim is in stable condition, according to police.

Witness Jay Marzelli thought the shots were fireworks at first.

“I was in this bodega right here on Creston, just getting a sandwich and all of a sudden there was all this running and stuff going on and I look out probably 40, 50, 60 cops screaming, ‘Call a paramedic, clear the block!’ ” he said.

“It looked like there was a riot going on and two seconds later I hear gunshots, ‘bam, bam’ and then the police officer was just laying there in front of the stationary precinct – right here on Creston.”

Officers with an NYPD anti-crime unit chased the suspected gunman a block away onto Morris Ave. where he was shot dead after brandishing a revolver, O’Neill added.

Heavily armed cops arrive at the scene of Wednesday's shooting in the Bronx. 

 (SAM COSTANZA/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

Hundreds of heavily armed police officers were on the streets surrounding the scene into the early morning hours.

Fireworks periodically lit up the night sky as residents of the Fordham Heights neighborhood continued to celebrate the Fourth of July, undeterred by the massive police presence.

“The city was celebrating our Independence Day. One of those days we look forward to each year. The NYPD did an extraordinary job keeping our city safe ... and tragedy struck,” Mayor de Blasio said, starting off the press conference just before 3:30 a.m.

The reports of the pyrotechnics rattled off apartment buildings as NYPD police helicopters circled overhead, their spotlights trained on the area.

Streets were shut down for blocks in all directions. 

The late night holiday shooting was eerily similar to the assassination of two officers as they sat in their marked police car on a street in Brooklyn in December 2014.

Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were targeted by a gunman who had posted anti-police messages on his social media feeds in the days before the shooting, officials said at the time.

Police Commissioner James O’Neill is scheduled to conduct a media briefing at St. Barnabas, where cops have about four full blocks closed off on 3rd Ave., only allowing police vehicles to pass.

“I was driving up 183rd here and cops started running up to me in a hurry screaming back up back up, we drove back in reverse about three blocks,” said Ernesto Martinez Jr. 31, who lives in the neighborhood. “I ran over to the hospital, when I got this way cops started flooding in, man, they’ve just been coming and coming.”

The officer was shot less than two miles away from where Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo was fatally shot by an armed ex-con in November.

A second cop, Sgt. Emmanuel Kwo, suffered a graze wound, but survived that shooting.