One of two NYPD cops shot in wild Bronx gun battle expected to be released from hospital on Thanksgiving

At least one of the cops wounded during a shootout with a gunman in the Bronx Wednesday will be released from the hospital on Thanksgiving, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said early Thursday.

Officers Alejandra Jacobs and Robert Holmes were shot near E. 187th St. and Beaumont Ave in Belmont after responding to a 911 call for a man with a gun about 8 p.m. Wednesday.

“We have a lot to be thankful for certainly today,” Shea told NBC’s Today Show, speaking along the route of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Midtown.

“They are doing well, relatively speaking. We anticipate one will get out today. One is probably going to have to spend a couple days in the hospital.”

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea points to the bullet hole in the shirt of one of the officers who was shot on Wednesday night.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea points to the bullet hole in the shirt of one of the officers who was shot on Wednesday night. 

Jacobs and Holmes encountered Charlie Vasquez, 23, sitting on a building stoop and told him to take his hands out of his pockets. Vasquez pulled a gun and opened fire.

Vasquez fired four time, hitting Jacobs twice in the right arm. Jacobs returned fire, hitting Vasquez three times in the chest. One of Vasquez’s bullets hit Holmes in the right armpit and came out his left chest.

“What strikes you as you watch that video is the speed in which it happens and the no regard for human life,” Shea said at a press conference late Wednesday.

Both officers — assigned to patrol the 48th Precinct — were taken to St. Barnabas Hospital.

Vasquez was in serious condition after surgery. The gun he used was reported stolen from Georgia a year ago. Vasquez has nine prior arrests.

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