NYPD detective from Long Island shot in Brooklyn, saved by armored vest, department says

An NYPD detective from Long Island was shot by an 18-year-old male early Sunday morning in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, according to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and other department officials.

Det. Robert Karroll was wearing an armored vest and was bruised by the shot. An NYPD official said Karroll is from Suffolk County.

"That vest saved his life," Tisch said at a news briefing, where she also discussed a Coney Island shooting during a Saturday barbecue that left four adults and four children wounded.

Karroll was shot shortly after 4 a.m. on Sunday. Police officers who had been assigned to the area were parked in an unmarked car on Nostrand Avenue and St. John’s Place when they were approached by the suspect, Tisch said.

Officers "exited their vehicle and attempted to engage the armed individual," Tisch said.

There was no body camera footage of the shooting, Tisch added, "presumably because it happened so quickly and unexpectedly," but she said there were bullet holes in the front and rear windshields of the police car.

Three officers left the car and shot at the suspect, but he was not hit, according to Tisch. Officers caught up with the shooter a few blocks away, used a Taser on him and took him into custody, the commissioner said.

The NYPD had not released the name of the suspect late Sunday.

Another officer had bruises on the face, Tisch said.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who joined the police commissioner at the news briefing at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County, said he wished to "express my gratitude that this incident did not hold more grave consequences and to Detective Karroll and to every officer who has been safeguarding our city over what has been a busy holiday weekend."

The Sunday shooting took place nine years to the day since Officer Miosotis Familia, a mother of three, was shot and killed as she sat in her police car in the Bronx, Mamdani noted.

Tisch also said a family barbecue in Coney Island turned into a scene of violence Saturday night.

She said a family was gathered near Surf Avenue and West 30th Street when a man wearing a black ski mask approached a fence along Surf Avenue "and fired multiple rounds into the courtyard" and fled.

Tisch said officers responding to a 911 call after the shooting found eight people had been shot — four adults and four children, ages 6, 7, 12 and 14. A 21-year-old woman was shot in the chest and is in critical condition. The other seven are listed as "not likely to die," Tisch said at the briefing.

"There is no place for such violence in our city," Mamdani said. "We will not tolerate it and we will fight it with every single tool at our disposal."

There was no suggestion of any argument or "altercation" at the family gathering before the shooting, Tisch said, but there was a shooting on the same block earlier in the week and the NYPD is investigating a possible connection while searching for the suspect.

Newsday's Anthony M. DeStefano contributed to this story.