New York Breaking News

NEW YORK (CBS) ― An off-duty police officer who drew his gun while chasing someone he had found rummaging through his car late Thursday was shot and killed by a fellow officer who was driving by and saw the pursuit, Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Officer Omar J. Edwards died after being shot within blocks of the Harlem police station where he worked. The shooting officer has been identified as Officer Andrew Dunton.

An autopsy Friday confirmed Edwards died of a gunshot wounds to the chest after a bullet struck him in the back and lodged in his chest. A second bullet went in and out of his left arm, and a third shot struck him in his left hip.

Investigators are still trying to piece together exactly what happened.

"It was seconds. It was seconds after, it happened immediately. I mean everything happened so fast," said Manuel Cardona, who witnessed the shooting.

Cardona's account of what happened falls in line with what police officials say went down shortly after 10:30 on Thursday night. Edwards, a 25-year-old housing bureau officer – a two-year department veteran – had just wrapped up his shift at the E. 124th Street station like any other night. Things took a turn for the worse, however, as Edwards walked around the corner toward his personal car parked on Second Avenue.

"We believe he saw an individual, later apprehended and identified as Miguel Santiago rummaging through his car after having smashed the driver-side window to gain entry," said Kelly.

Edwards approached and attempted to stop Santiago, before the two got into a physical struggle. Santiago was able to get away from the officer, however, by slipping out of his sweater, Kelly said. Edwards chased the man up two streets with his gun drawn, he said.

A sergeant and two plainclothes officers in an unmarked police car saw the pursuit and made a U-turn to follow the men, Kelly said. One of the officers, identified Friday morning as Dunton, jumped out of the car and fired six times, hitting Edwards three times.

"The officer jumps out of the car. He decides to tell the officer that got killed something. The black guy that was in his car decides to take off running and then I hear four shots," said Cardona.

Kelly said Edwards, who was not wearing a bullet-resistant vest, did not fire his weapon. He died at the Harlem Hospital Center about an hour after the shooting.

"While we don't know all the details of what happened tonight, this is a tragedy. Rest assured that we will find out exactly what happened here, and we will learn from it so it doesn't happen again," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference from the hospital.

What is still unclear is whether or not Dunton, a four-year veteran in the anti-crime unit, identified himself as a police officer before the firing on Edwards. That leads to another obvious question: was race a factor in this shooting?

"It was 200 percent unjustified," said Cardona. "There was no reason why that cop should have shot at an officer or person period with his back turned going after somebody."

But Rev. Al Sharpton on Friday morning questioned whether the police department could investigate themselves "fairly and impartially." Sharpton also expressed concern of a "growing pattern of black officers being killed" by fellow white officers.

"Even though we don't know all that what happened, what we do know is disturbing and alarming and we're starting to see a pattern," he told CBS 2. "I think that the federal government needs to look at the pattern of what's going on in this state."

Sharpton said black officers are being gunned down under the assumption they're criminals.

"Just last year, we were involved in the case of Christopher Ridley in Mt. Vernon, killed in similar circumstances by another officer," he said. "This calls for federal investigation and intervention to sort out the facts and bring about a just resolve. Can police investigate themselves fairly and impartially? It would seem very difficult at best and unlikely in fact."

CBS 2 HD spoke with an unidentified neighbor of Edwards, who lived in Oceanhill, Brooklyn.

"We knew him from the block. Everyone knew him. We knew him growing up," the neighbor said. "I'm really sorry to hear that, he was a great guy."

Edwards was recently married and leaves behind two children.

Outside of domestic disputes, it's the first time a New York Police Department officer has been killed by a colleague since early 2006, when Alfredo Toro shot Eric Hernandez at a Bronx fast food restaurant.

Hernandez, who was dazed from a beating he had suffered, was shot after he refused orders to drop his weapon. Six people were charged with his beating.

In Jan. 25, 2008, a black, off-duty Mount Vernon police officer was killed by a Westchester County policeman while holding a gun on an assault suspect in suburban White Plains. A grand jury found the victim had failed to identify himself as an officer. County officers -- one white, one black and two Hispanic -- were cleared of wrongdoing by a grand jury.

Prior to this incident, the last time an officer was killed in the line of duty was Russel Timoshenko back in 2007.

Lee Woods was sentenced to life in prison back in April for his role in the killing. A jury found the 31-year-old guilty in March in the death of Officer Timoshenko and the attempted murder of his partner, Herman Yan.

Woods and two others acted as a team to shoot the officers in 2007 after being caught with a stolen SUV. Yan was hit in the chest, but his bulletproof vest saved him.

Dexter Bostic received a life sentence plus 55 years for murder. Robert Ellis was convicted of weapons possession and sentenced to 15 years.

  

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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