A police officer was shot to death by another officer as he was chasing a man he saw breaking into his car in New York’s East Harlem neighborhood , authorities said.
New York Police Department Officer Omar Edwards, 25, was shot twice about 10:30 p.m. Thursday just blocks from the precinct where he had finished his shift. He was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Harlem Hospital. Edwards, in plainclothes, had just left the Housing Bureau Station House on East 124th St., said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. As Edwards approached his car, he saw a man rummaging through it. “We believe that at this point, Officer Edwards, with his gun drawn, chased the individual north to 125th Street and east toward First Avenue,” Kelly said at a news conference in New York early Friday at Harlem Hospital. Edwards was not wearing a bulletproof vest and did not fire a shot, Kelly said. Plainclothes officers patrolling the neighborhood in an unmarked vehicle saw the chase and went after Edwards and the suspect. “One of the officers, after exiting the vehicle, fired six times from a 9 mm Glock,” Kelly said. Edwards was shot in the chest and arm. It was not clear whether any of the officers had identified themselves as law enforcement. The officer who fired the shots has four-and-a-half years’ experience, authorities said. The shooting is under investigation, Kelly said. A man was later arrested on suspicion of breaking into Edwards’ car.
