A 22-year-old Brooklyn man has pleaded guilty to several counts of aggravated assault on a police officer and other charges for stabbing a cop in the neck, taking the injured officer’s gun, using it to shoot the officer’s partner in the hand and firing it at responding officers, wounding a third cop in a June 2020 attack in his home borough.
Dzenan Camovic had said his "religion made me do it," when he spoke with federal prosecutors and authorities in the days after the knife and firearm attack on multiple NYPD officers. Court filings had said the Bosnian national was motivated to attack the officers because of his interest in and support for violent Islamist extremism.
The attack in question unfolded shortly before midnight on June 3, 2020. As prosecutors described it, NYPD officers Yayon Frantz Jean Pierre and Randy Ramnarine were standing on the corner of Flatbush and Church avenues when Camovic, walking south on Flatbush Avenue, walked up to Jean Pierre from behind and stabbed him in the neck. He then rushed Ramnarine with the knife and threw it at him, officials have said.
Jean Pierre fired at Camovic and tripped, at which point Camovic fought with the officer for control of his gun. He managed to wrestle it away and fired at Ramnarine, striking him in the hand. Camovic also opened fire on more officers as they responded. One of those officers was hit in the hand as well. Both shot cops were able to recover, as was the officer who had been stabbed in the neck and had his gun taken from him.
Camovic was shot multiple times in the fray. He recovered from those injuries as well.
Federal prosecutors said Camovic was born in Germany and has no legal immigration status in the U.S. The Flatbush man faces 30 years in prison at his sentencing, which has been scheduled for early August. Camovic also pleaded guilty in federal court to Hobbs Act Robbery and Discharging a Firearm in Furtherance of a Crime of Violence. He'll be sentenced to 30 years federally to run concurrently with the state sentence.
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"This case highlights the incredible dangers faced by police officers working to protect our neighborhoods, and we have no tolerance for anyone who attempts to do them harm," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement announcing the plea. "In outrageous acts of violence, this defendant stabbed a police officer in the neck as he stood on the corner, and then shot his partner and a responding officer. Today’s guilty plea and the significant sentence this defendant faces will ensure he is held accountable for this vicious and unprovoked attack."
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At the time of the attack, then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr released a statement calling Camovic's actions "premeditated and cowardly," accusing him of using "the cover of chaos during recent civil unrest in New York City" to carry out his plan.
Barr was referring to the widespread protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of a former Minneapolis police officer. Those protests prompted at least 200 cities in the U.S. to implement curfews by early June in an effort to curb the violence.
While court papers and search warrant records indicate Camovic had an interest in Islamic State and other Syrian-based terrorist groups, according to federal prosecutors, his attorneys said their client did not hold extremist religious views and the attack had "nothing to do with religion."
"This is Dzenan’s first arrest, and he comes from a hard-working, loving family," the attorneys said in a joint statement that summer. "Like a number of others during this pandemic, he has been struggling with untreated mental health issues. We look forward to defending him."
