NYPD cop gunned down in Harlem shootout
A cop was fatally shot in the head while chasing a gunman amid a shootout in East Harlem on Tuesday night.
Randolph Holder, 33, a five-year veteran of the force who was assigned to the Housing unit, responded to a 911 call of gunfire between two rival gangs at 420 E. 102nd St. at about 9 p.m., according to law enforcement sources.
When officers arrived on the scene, the warring groups split up and scattered, with one suspect robbing a bicycle at gunpoint.
That gunman led cops on a chase up First Avenue and then over a footbridge at 120th Street and the FDR Drive.
The suspect made it over to the East River side of the bridge and shot at the cops, striking Holder in the forehead.
Holder’s partner returned fire, wounding the gunman in the leg and buttocks. The suspect was apprehended at East 124th Street.
Police sources identified the shooting suspect as Tyrone Howard, 30. He has not been charged yet.
“I heard so many gunshots,” said a witness, Angelique Martinez, 47. “It sounded like there was a shootout outside my building. It’s really scary.”
Indeed numerous shots can be heard in the background of a 911 call Tuesday night reporting the shootout, according to audio posted by former NYPD cop John Cardillo, now a radio host in West Palm Beach, Fla.
The wounded officer died at Harlem Hospital at about 10:30 p.m.
“Tonight, he did what every other officer in the New York City Police Department does,” Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said at the hospital. “When the call comes, he ran toward danger. That’s the last time he will respond to that call.”
Holder was a resident of the Rockaways who immigrated from Guyana with his father.
The dad, also named Randolph, was taken to the hospital by helicopter from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.
“His father, in his time of grief, sought to console the officers of PSA 5,” Bratton said, referring to the Public Service Area where Holder was assigned.
“He’s strong enough and brave enough to go in and address them and try to comfort them.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the hospital, “We are all mourning tonight. The whole city is mourning.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the officer’s family, who are experiencing unimaginable pain.
“He gave the last full measure of his devotion on behalf of the city he loved.”
Police found an ammunition magazine at the scene of the shooting, and a revolver near the scene of the gang shootout.
The gunman was recovering at Cornell Medical Center. Three other suspects were apprehended.
Officers were searching the East River for the killer’s weapon, which they believe he threw into the water after shooting Holder.
“There’s so much violence in this area,” said Martinez, the witness. “When I heard that an officer was shot, I had to come outside to see for myself.”
The FDR near 120th Street was briefly shut to traffic as officers scoured the crime scene.
NYPD officers salute a motorcade carrying slain cop Randolph Holder.
In recent months, the NYPD has been wracked by the shooting deaths of cops.
Holder is the fourth NYPD cop killed in the line of duty in the past 10 months — since the tragic Christmastime double murder of Detectives Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.
The partners were shot and killed on Dec. 20, 2014, by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a cop-hating gunman angry over the racially tinged deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, who died at the hands of police.
Brinsley killed Ramos and Liu as they sat in their parked squad car in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Minutes later, Brinsley killed himself on a subway platform.
On May 2, Officer Brian Moore, 25, was mortally wounded in Queens, taking a bullet to the head while trying to question Demetrius Blackwell, 35, who had been suspiciously fidgeting with something in his belt.
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