2 New York City police sergeants shot in struggle with armed robbery suspect, both expected to live

NEW YORK (AP) — Two New York City police sergeants were shot Thursday as they struggled with a man suspected of sticking up a Manhattan mahjong parlor and stealing women’s purses, police said.

One sergeant was hit in the groin and will be kept at a hospital overnight for observation, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. The other sustained a graze wound to the leg and will be released Thursday, he said. Both sergeants were struck with the same bullet, Kenny said. They are expected to make a full recovery.

“Today is yet another reminder of the dangers New York City police officers face every day as they go out the to keep our city safe,” Police Commissioner Edward Caban said at a news conference at Bellevue Hospital, where the sergeants were treated.

The sergeants are “in good spirits,” Caban said, “but make no mistake, today could have turned out very different.”

The suspect, identified by police as 22-year-old Joshua Dorsett, was restrained by the wounded sergeants and other officers before being taken to a police station, Kenny said. No police officers fired at Dorsett. Police recovered a Taurus semi-automatic pistol at the scene, Kenny said.

Online court records didn’t list a lawyer for Dorsett. A message seeking comment was left with a lawyer representing a man with Dorsett’s name in another case. Kenny said that hours before the shooting, Dorsett made a required monthly visit with his probation officer.

The shooting happened around 4:23 p.m. after police responded to a 911 call for an armed man robbing women of their purses at a business on the second floor of a building on Canal Street, a major east-west thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan, police said.

Security camera footage showed a man pulling out a gun, announcing that he’s committing a robbery, points the gun at numerous women and begins stealing their purses, Kenny said. Police suspect the mahjong parlor may have been targeted because money sometimes changes hands during games, Kenny said.

The man was gone by the time police officers arrived but a person matching his description was spotted a block away about seven minutes later, Kenny said. There, the two sergeants converged on Dorsett and pinned him against a parked car, Kenny said.

Dorsett then pulled a loaded gun from his front pants pocket and the sergeants struggled with him to take it away from him, telling him at one point, “let me see your hands,” Kenny said. The gun then went off, a single shot hitting one sergeant’s groin and clipping the other sergeant’s leg.

The shooting snarled Canal Street just before rush hour. Police blocked off the busy boulevard — lined with shops, restaurants and street vendors — with vehicles and yellow crime scene tape as investigators looked for signs of the shooting and scoured nearby delis for surveillance footage.

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Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.