by David Greene

A day after NYPD police officer Wenjian Liu was laid to rest, two anti-crime cops were wounded after they responded to a call of a robbery in progress at a deli in Fordham Heights. The shooter remains at large. 

Officials say officers from the 46th Precinct anti-crime unit were in the area when an alert of a robbery in progress was reported at a deli located at East 184 Street and Tiebout Avenue at 10:23 p.m. on Monday, January 5.

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton told reporters at Saint Barnabas Hospital, where the officers are being treated, that one of the suspects entered a Chinese restaurant on Tiebout, while another suspect remained outside of the street.

“As two of the officers approached the male on the street, the other suspect inside of the store came out and fired upon the officers,” recounted Commissioner Bratton. “The officers returned fire, and during the exchange, two anti-crime officers were wounded. The two suspects then fled on foot one block east to Marion Avenue, where they carjacked a white Camaro.”

The vehicle would later be found abandoned near East 188th Street and Park Avenue. A black revolver was found nearby. Dozens of uniformed officers were brought in to canvas the area for the suspect.

Officials say a 30 year-old male officer was hit in the lower back and left arm and was reported to be in surgery. The unidentified officer was listed in critical, but stable condition. The second wounded officer is a 38 year-old male who was shot in the chest and left arm and remains in stable condition at the same hospital.

Dozens of officers were brought to the area in vans as they shutdown bus service across Fordham Road and briefly halted train service out of the Fordham Road Metro-North Station.

Detectives would discover a second vehicle involved, a Nissan Altima outside of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan and are currently questioning a man being treated for a gun shot wound to the back.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton paid a late-night visit to the officers at the hospital. Mayor de Blasio, still feeling the aftermath of the double shooting off officers Liu and his partner Rafael Ramos, called the incident an example “of the dangers that our officers face in the line of duty.”

Bratton briefed reporters on one officer’s condition, saying, “He is currently in the operating room and is listed in critical condition.”

The suspect already in custody had not yet been charged as of Tuesday morning.