Two New York police officers were shot and wounded late Monday evening in the Bronx, a local CBS affiliate reports.
Both officers were immediately taken to St. Barnabas Medical Center and are expected to survive. One was shot in the arm and the other in the leg, according to NYPD officials.
The two cops were shot around 10:40 p.m. in the Fordham area of the Bronx, in front of 2532 Tiebout Ave.
The officers had pulled over a car but the suspect in question attempted to drive away and crashed, according to the New York Post. The suspect got out of the car after crashing and began shooting at the officers before fleeing the scene. The NYPD had not caught the suspect as of just after 11 p.m. local time.
This incident follows the brutal murder of two NYPD officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, who were shot execution-style on Dec. 20 in their police car by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who fled and then committed suicide.
Brinsley apparently murdered Ramos and Wenjian as retribution for the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York.
For weeks, protesters across the country have been arguing that police forces are targeting black males for violence in the wake of Brown’s and Garner’s deaths and grand juries’ decisions not to indict the officers responsible.
Some of those protests have turned violent. Just five days before Ramos and Liu were murdered, a group at an Al Sharpton-led protest in the Murray Hill neighborhood of New York were caught on video shouting, “What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now.”
In the wake of the protests, the NYPD is now in an ongoing spat with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has been criticized by many for stoking anti-police sentiment after a grand jury did not indict an NYPD officer in the death of Eric Garner. Police officers have turned their backs to de Blasio while he has spoken several times recently, including at a press conference discussing Ramos’ and Liu’s murders and at the two officers’ funerals. (RELATED: Hundreds Of Police Officers Turned Against De Blasio At Slain NYPD Officer’s Funeral [VIDEO])