New York Police Department Officer Randolph Holder died after being shot while responding to a robbery call in east Harlem Manhattan Tuesday night, according to reports.
The call came in at 8:25 p.m. at 103rd St. and FDR Drive. Witnesses reported that several males had fled along the footpath going north on FDR Drive after stealing a bike from a male victim at gunpoint.
Officers from the Housing Bureau Ant-Crime Unit in plainclothes encountered a male on a bicycle on a pedestrian overpass above FDR Drive.
The suspect and the officers shot at each other, and during this exchange, Officer Holder was shot in the head.
The suspect, who was shot in the leg, then fled north on foot along the FDR Drive promenade and was apprehended at 124th Street. Three other males were taken into custody for questioning.
Holder was transported in an NYPD Emergency Service Unit (ESU) truck to Harlem hospital, where he was pronounced dead at the hospital. The suspect was also transported to the hospital and is in stable condition. Police recovered his weapon.
Holder was appointed to the department in July 2010. He was 33 years old and unmarried. His family resides in New York City, and he and his father Randolph were both natives of Guyana, NBC New York reports.
“This whole city is in mourning,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference. “On behalf of the 35,000 men and women of this department — police officers — and our 17,000 civilians, I extend our deepest condolences to his family, and especially to his father, who in his time of grief sought to comfort the officers from PSA 5.”
“He is the fourth New York City police officer murdered in this city in the last 11 months,” Police Commissioner William Bratton told reporters.
“Tonight, he did what every other officer in the NYPD does. When the call comes he ran toward danger. It was the last time he will respond to that call,” Bratton said.