NEW YORK – A New York City plainclothes police officer managed to fire his service weapon even as he was being dragged by a driver in a stolen car for more than two city blocks, striking one of the occupants in the vehicle, police said Sunday.
Officer Dalsh Veve was hospitalized in critical condition after the dragging, which took place around midnight Saturday in Brooklyn. New York Police Department Commissioner James O'Neill said Veve and other officers had responded to the scene after getting calls of shots fired, which were determined to be fireworks.
O'Neill said Veve, 35, was speaking to the occupants of a Honda parked in front of a fire hydrant when other officers saw him being dragged down the street by the car. He fell to the street a couple of blocks away, and the car crashed a short distance away and was abandoned by the people inside.
O'Neill said a 15-year-old believed to have been in the car came into a hospital soon after with a gunshot wound, and was in serious condition. Two other people were being questioned in police custody.
Police said the car had recently been stolen on Long Island.
Veve has been a part of the NYPD for nine years, and is the married father of a 2-year-old girl.