A 25-year-old Japanese tourist — sleeping on a Brooklyn pal’s couch — was wounded early today when a cop on a drug raid accidentally fired his gun through the floor above her.
“I heard a bang and jumped up. She didn’t say anything — she was kind of nervous and shocked,” said the victim’s friend, who lives in the apartment and gave his name only as Marcus.
The freak friendly-fire accident occurred about 6 a.m. as Brooklyn South Narcotics officers, armed with a search warrant and looking for pot and crack cocaine, broke down the door at a third-floor apartment at 3003 Clarendon Road in Flatbush, authorities said.
The first cop into the room held his 9-mm handgun in one hand and a large police shield in the other as he announced the raid and shouted “Hands up!” sources said.
Suspect Ernesto Ortiz, 28, who was sleeping on a sofabed with his girlfriend, raised a blanket in front of him, then kicked at the cop’s shield with his foot, sources said.
The cop’s gun accidentally fired — and the bullet went through Ortiz’s sofa mattress, then through the floorboard and down to the second-floor living room below.
Sleeping on the sofa there was the tourist, who had just arrived in New York a few days ago and was planning to fly to Barbados today with her friend, a former Marine, and a female colleague, sources said. She and Marcus are mutual friends with the Marine.
The bullet grazed the tourist’s left forearm.
Wounded but walking on her own, she was taken to Kings County Hospital.
“She looked like she was in pain,” said Jeffrey Diaz, 36, whose construction crew was in the area working on a transformer at the time.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly visited her at the hospital — and arranged for cops to drive her to the airport in time to make her flight to Barbados when he learned of her trip.
Residents of the apartment building couldn’t explain the bizarre shooting.
“The only thing I know is that there’s a bullet in my ceiling,” Marcus said.
Landlord Adrien Bateau said he was stunned.
“You don’t want to wake up as a landlord and hear that,” he said.
Authorities said the 36-year-old cop whose gun discharged had never fired his weapon before.
The officers who executed the search warrant found marijuana inside the third-floor apartment and arrested Ortiz, of 426 Baltic St., who has a record of 25 prior arrests and was on probation. They also arrested his 29-year-old girlfriend, Chanel Spence, who lives in the Clarendon Road building.
Republished with permission of The New York Post
