Police: Day care was drug haven

NEW YORK – Police shot and wounded an armed man during a brazen robbery attempt at a day care center that functioned as a drug haven, with a trove of marijuana and more than $100,000 in cash in its basement, authorities said Saturday.

Special Moments Daycare owner Donna Rogers, 37, and her husband, Sherwin Rogers, 36, were arrested on marijuana-possession charges after police said they found the money and 10 pounds of the drug in the Brooklyn center.

Children were lying down for naps around noon Friday when two men knocked on the day care center’s door and forced their way past an employee who answered, police said.

The owner’s husband, who was not at the center, called 911 after an employee called him. When officers arrived a few minutes later, they found Gavin Nugent, 34, in a back room. Children were in another room nearby.

Nugent pointed a gun at officers, who fired three rounds at him and followed him when he ran to the basement, police said.

Following a trail of blood, officers found him in a back room.

Meanwhile, a police sergeant ushered the roughly 12 children and four staffers calmly to safety, police said. None was hurt, but “my friends were crying,” 2-year-old Yosha Williams told the New York Times.