Photo: Hayden Roger Celestin
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. July 29, 2014: A New York City Police Department Crime Scene Detective late Monday walked through a doorway where two Marshals and a NYPD Detective were shot by a suspect they were trying to arrest in New York City’s, West Village on Monday July 28, 2014.
Charles Mozdir, the suspect, was shot dead by law enforcement officers at the scene after he opened fire on them. He had been on the run for more than two years after he was accused of molesting a friend’s 7-year-old son and missed his June 2012 arraignment, police Commissioner Bill Bratton said at a Monday afternoon news conference.
The NYPD Fugitive Task Force had learned that Mozdir was working at Smoking Culture NYC at 177 W. Fourth St., and went there to arrest him around 1 p.m. Monday, Bratton said.
The NYPD detective entered the location and found him apparently alone in the store, Bratton said. The detective and the U.S. marshals — all part of the Regional Fugitive Task Force — stormed into the shop to arrest Mozdir, and he immediately fired a .32-caliber revolver at close range, Bratton said. The officer immediately returned fire, he said. A NYPD officer was shot twice in the abdomen below his bulletproof vest. One of the marshals was shot in the elbow, the other in the buttocks.
Mozdir’s story had recently been featured on John Walsh’s ‘The Hunt.’ Word of his death stunned his family in California.
