NYPD cop shot and killed responding to home invasion
An NYPD sergeant was fatally shot in the head and another sergeant badly wounded in a Wild West-style shootout in The Bronx on Friday afternoon, law -enforcement sources said.
Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo a 41-year-old married father of two, died without getting a shot off after he and several other officers chased the suspect down about 2:45 p.m.
The wounded officers and other cops were responding to a report of an armed home invasion at the time.
The perp died in the shootout.
Sources said the shooting took place after cops spotted the suspect’s red Jeep near 1460 Beach Ave. in a residential neighborhood in the Van Nest section.
They chased the perp several blocks to 1575 Noble Ave., next to the Noble Playground, where they boxed in his Jeep.
The suspect, Manuel Rosales, 35, of Brentwood in Suffolk County, got out of his car and stood on the sidewalk, and when Tuozzolo left his vehicle, the perp opened fire without warning and shot the 18-year NYPD veteran twice — once in the head and again in the upper torso.
The sergeant’s partner and an officer in another car then fired and fatally shot Rosales in a gunfight captured on video, sources said.
One unidentified officer assumed a combat stance and started shooting, the video showed.
“It’s pretty heroic, he’s under fire and returning fire. Who knows how many lives he saved by killing this guy?” a law-enforcement source told The Post.
A cop who worked with Tuozzolo called the dead sergeant “a stand-up guy, someone you would want on your side and as a partner.
“The NYPD lost a good one today,” the source added of Tuozzolo, who lived on Long Island.
The other wounded officer, Sgt. Emmanual Kwo, 30, and a nine-year NYPD vet, was shot multiple times in the right leg and was in serious condition.
Sources said that before the shootout, the mother of Rosales’ child called 911 after he had held her hostage for nearly four hours in her apartment blocks from where the shootout occurred.
The unidentified woman described his jeep, enabling cops to find him.
Contacted at her home, the shaken woman declined comment.
“I can’t talk,” she told The Post.
Both officers were rushed to Jacobi Hospital, where the blood bank was notified that they could need transfusions.
Tuozzolo’s family arrived at the hospital in an NYPD helicopter shortly before 5 p.m.
Mayor de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill also rushed to Jacobi, where they were joined by other department brass.
Gov. Cuomo issued a statement praising the cops as heroes.
“Every day, the brave men and women of law enforcement selflessly serve our communities to keep the rest of us safe. Today, a sergeant in the New York City Police Department has made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, and another officer is undergoing treatment,” Cuomo said.
“My deepest sympathies are with the families of the officers involved in today’s tragedy in the Bronx, and with Commissioner O’Neill and the NYPD as they cope with the loss of one of their own.
Rosalses had prior minor offenses in both North Carolina and South Carolina — for littering and traffic violations.
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