By Rocco Parascandola
Source New York Daily News
A bullet-resistant panel was removed from the patrol car a cop was driving when a gunshot shattered a window, injuring the officer behind the wheel, a police source said Friday.
Det. Sunjay Verma arm was injured in Brooklyn on Thursday afternoon.
Police said he was driving west on Pitkin Ave. near Legion St. in Brownsville when he rolled into a barrage of bullets — at least nine shots were fired, one of which blew out the cruiser’s driver side window then struck the passenger side window’s bullet-resistant panel.
Verma’s partner, Officer Nickita Beckford, was not hurt.
The bullet was recovered and police are still looking for the shooter, who appeared to be aiming for a white vehicle heading north on Legion St.
The gunman was wearing a white T-shirt and blue shorts, but ditched the T-shirt and the gun, a Taurus 9mm pistol, in a nearby courtyard, police sources said.
The NYPD moved to install what it calls “ballistic doors and windows” in its fleet of police cars, at $4,200 per vehicle, after the executions of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, both of whom were sitting together in their patrol car in Bedford- Stuyvesant when a career criminal shot them in December 2014.
The panels can stop a bullet from a .44-caliber magnum and a blast from a shotgun.
Police are looking into who removed the panel in the car Verma was driving and why, sources said. Some cops have complained that the panels limit ventilation on a hot day. The NYPD source said it is possible an officer could be disciplined for removing the panel, which is a violation of department policy.
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