A former NYPD officer whose mother said left the force to be a cop in a "safer place" was killed in a shootout near an elementary school in Texas on Tuesday.
Officer David S. Hofer was shot and killed after trading gunfire with a suspect in a park in Euless, a small suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth, according to Police Chief Mike Brown.
Hofer was called to the park after getting a call of shots fired in the area. When he and the other officers arrived, they were met by a suspect who opened fire.
"Upon arrival, officers encountered a suspect with an unknown weapon," Brown said. "The suspect immediately fired upon officers, striking one of them. Officers returned fire, striking the suspect."
Hofer was pronounced dead after being taken to the hospital, Brown said. A second person who had been shot was also taken to a hospital, where he died. That person's identity -- and whether he was an officer, suspect or bystander -- hadn't been released Wednesday morning.
The shooting was first reported by NBC DFW.
Hofer went to St. Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights and was a 2008 graduate of New York University. He served in the NYPD for five years, working out of the Ninth Precinct on Manhattan's Lower East Side, before moving to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
"He was wonderful child, a wonderful police officer," his mother, Sofija Hofer, told the newspaper. "He was working this very difficult precinct, so he had a lot of traumatic experiences. ... He decided to go to a safer place. "
Sofija Hofer said her son wanted to write a book about his experience with the NYPD.
"I thought he might be a scientist, like his father, but he always wanted to be a policeman, ever since he was a little boy," she said.
After the shooting Tuesday, the NYPD tweeted "there are no words to describe the heartbreak of the loss of PO David Hofer who was proud #NYPD before going to TX."
With great honor we post this picture, which P.O David Hofer posted on his 1St day in Memory of PO Guindon #NYPD pic.twitter.com/kMkBdqyb53
— NYPD 9th Precinct (@NYPD9Pct) March 2, 2016
A former NYPD sergeant who worked with Hofer in Manhattan in one of his early assignments with department described Hofer as a good guy with a big future. Another NYPD officer said some of the folks who knew Hofer well were simply too upset to talk about it right now.
NYPD officials said grief counselors will be at the Ninth Precinct.
A group for fallen officers in New York City posted a picture Tuesday night with the message "RIP brother."
