Two officers are recovering at home, let out from the hospital, after a shooting in Queens. News 4’s Jessica Cunnington reports.
Two police officers were released from a hospital Monday, hours after they were shot in Queens overnight in a chaotic scene that also left a suspect wounded.
Officers investigating a robbery pattern involving mopeds and scooters in East Elmhurst tried to pull over a person going the wrong way on a moped near 23rd Avenue and 82nd Street just after 1:30 a.m., police said, but the man jumped off and ran away.
The two 26-year-old officers chased him several blocks, and NYPD officials say he fired at them multiple times during the pursuit. One officer, Richard Yarusso, was hit in his bulletproof vest, which stopped the bullet; the other, Christopher Abreu, took a bullet to the leg.
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They were both taken to Elmhurst Hospital and were later released to applause from other law enforcement members.
The suspect, identified as 19-year-old Bernardo Raul Castro Mata, was shot once in the right ankle. He was taken into custody and transported to a hospital for treatment, where he was expected to recover after surgery. The teen had been staying at a migrant shelter on Ditmars Boulevard, steps from the crime scene, after arriving in the U.S. in 2023, law enforcement sources said.
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It was not immediately clear what charges Castro Mata would face, or if he had an attorney.
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A firearm was recovered at the scene.
Investigators said the 19-year-old from Venezuela has no prior arrests in New York City but is a suspect in two violent robberies in Queens on May 21. In both cases, suspects on mopeds used force to rob victims of various items, including purses, phones and debit cards, according to three senior law enforcement officials.
"The patterns that we’re looking at currently in Queens that he’s involved with — phone snatching, in one case a woman attacked [and] her debit card stolen, and eventually it was used at a smoke shop," said NYPD Chief Joseph Kenny.
Police say they're currently investigating more than 80 robbery patterns involving scooters and mopeds citywide — four times the number of similar cases they had in the same time frame last year. In 2022, there were no such crime patterns.
While overall crime is down, robberies are on the rise, with moped robberies being a significant factor. A police official said the department has seized more than 13,000 mopeds thus far in 2024, and nearly 55,000 dating back to 2022.
Mayor Eric Adams visited the officers in the hospital Monday and later decried the shooting as "senseless."
"This is a bullet hole," Adams said, holding up the torn vest at a press conference. "Because of this vest, a young police officer is going home. The senseless act of violence, a total disregard for life, our officers responded with a level of discipline a level of focus and a level of professionalism."
NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said the officers were in good spirits, and the department stood ready to assist.
The investigation is ongoing.
