Postal Worker Shot Attempting To Foil Carjacking Suspect's Getaway
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police are investigating a wild crime spree in the Bronx. It involved two separate carjackings, multiple shots fired, and nearly cost a postal worker his life.
A postal truck with a single bullet hole in the windshield is the result of one of six total crimes police say were committed by the same man Tuesday afternoon. The mail carrier driving the truck was grazed by a bullet when police say he tried to chase down the suspect who had carjacked his coworker's Honda and was attempting to speed away.
Authorities say the chaos started around 5 p.m. Tuesday near the corner of Carpenter Avenue and East 232nd Street, where the suspect forcibly commandeered the Honda.
As the suspect attempted to flee the scene, police say the postal worker tried to chase after him in his mail truck.
"The perpetrator exited the vehicle and fired one round at the postal worker who was in the occupied vehicle," NYPD 47th Precinct Commander Inspector Ruel Stephenson said in a Tuesday evening press conference.
The suspect shot at the mail truck and pierced the windshield, striking the postal worker. Medics rushed him to Montefiore Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.
Jennifer Silvestri lives nearby and says she heard the gunfire.
"I just heard 'pop, pop,' then I heard the police but I didn't think it was anything until my friend called me," she told CBS2's Valerie Castro.
After the shooting, surveillance video exclusively obtained by CBS2 shows the suspect in the stolen Honda a block away at 231st Street and White Plains Road. He smashes the driver's side window to get out and walks away with a backpack.
On the next block, he ditched the backpack and took on another driver who was sitting in her silver Nissan sports utility vehicle.
Driving away in the Nissan, the suspect crashed into a car on Carpenter Avenue and 232nd Street and used his gun to shoot out the window to escape. By that time, police arrived on scene and took him into custody after a brief foot chase.
CBS2 reports the injured postal worker has spent ten years with the United States Postal Service and is expected to survive.
Police say the suspect was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time of the arrest, and the gun used in the carjackings was recovered at the scene.