Gunman ambushes NYC police twice in 12 hours, spawns outrage

NEW YORK – A gunman was arrested after he ambushed police officers in the Bronx twice in 12 hours, authorities said Sunday.

Robert Williams, 45, of the Bronx, was captured after he walked into a police station in the Bronx and started shooting shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday, police said. His shots struck a lieutenant in the arm and narrowly missed other police personnel before he ran out of bullets, lay down and tossed his pistol, officials said.

That attack came just hours after Williams approached a patrol van in the same part of the Bronx and fired at two officers inside, wounding one before escaping on foot, police said.

All of those shot are expected to recover, authorities said.

“It is only by the grace of God and the heroic actions of those inside the building that took him into custody that we are not talking about police officers murdered inside a New York City police precinct,” Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said at a news conference.

Williams is being charged with attempted murder, criminal weapon possession and resisting arrest, police said in an email late Sunday identifying him as the suspect. He was hospitalized Sunday evening, the Bronx prosecutor’s office said. It wasn’t clear whether he had an attorney to speak for him.

Williams had been upset since his own son died after being shot in the Bronx, the suspect’s grandmother told the New York Post.

“He was depressed at times because his son got shot in the street,” Mary Williams, 80, told the newspaper. “That was his only child.”

The officer injured in the first shooting, Paul Stroffolino, was released from the hospital Sunday to applause from colleagues. The officer, a bandage on his neck, gave a thumbs-up.

Shea called Williams a “coward” and said he had a long criminal history, including a 2002 shooting and carjacking in which he fired a gun at police. He was paroled from prison in 2017 after an attempted murder conviction, Shea said.

The first attack happened just before 8:30 p.m. Saturday, when the gunman walked up to the van asking the officers for directions and then fired shots, grazing Stroffolino, who was behind the wheel, in the chin and neck and narrowly missing an artery, authorities said.

Stroffolino and his partner for eight years, Brian Hanlon, a friend since middle school, hit the gas to get away. Neither fired a shot.

Police released a photo of the suspect and were combing the city for him when he walked into the police station coordinating the manhunt, strolled to the desk and pulled a gun, authorities said. The wounded lieutenant returned fire but missed, and police personnel dashed out of an adjoining room just in time to avoid the pursuing gunman.