Two Auxiliary Police Officers Killed in Greenwich Village

Two auxiliary police officers, a restaurant worker, and their suspected murderer were shot and killed during a fierce gun battle on the streets of Greenwich Village last night, officials said.

"It's a horrible night for the New York Police Department and the city," Mayor Bloomberg said at a 2 a.m. press conference.

The shooting started at about 9:20 p.m. inside DeMarco's Restaurant and Pizzeria at 146 West Houston St. The suspect in the shooting, who wasn't identified, asked for a menu, but when the restaurant worker turned around, he "inexplicably" fired 15 rounds into his back and fled, Mr. Bloomberg said.

Officers heard shots coming from the restaurant and began chasing him up MacDougal Street. The man turned right on Bleecker Street and then left on Sullivan Street with police in pursuit. He then doubled back and ran into the auxiliary officers. According to one witness, Carlos Valderrama, 33, he punched one officer in the face. The officers were trying to hide behind cars on the opposite side of the street when he opened fire.

One officer was struck in the head and died at St. Vincent's Hospital, police said. The other died about an hour later. They were identified as Nicholas Pekearo, 28, and a New York University sophomore, Yevgeniy Marshalik, 19. Pekearo was an aspiring writer.

Auxiliary police officers are unpaid volunteers who patrol in uniform, but they do not have weapons. About 4,500 work for the department, Mr. Bloomberg said.

Other officers shot and killed the suspect. A 9mm handgun, a .380 caliber handgun, a fake beard, and a bag with more than 100 rounds of unspent ammunition were found on him. The police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said he had fired at least 23 shots.

"The guy was clearly full of holes and blood was coming out," a man who was eating dinner at an Israeli restaurant, Jeffrey Sears, 48, said. He described the dead suspect as a middle-aged white male. "They weren't doing anything to resuscitate him."

The restaurant worker wasn't identified last night, but police said he died at the hospital.

Witnesses reported hearing as many as 20 gunshots in subsequent bursts during the gun battle. A Greenwich Village resident, Elizabeth Dileo, said she could smell the gun smoke lingering for minutes after the shooting. Then, swarms of police arrived from every direction, she said.

"Everybody that was sitting outside on the street came running inside jumping over couches," a diner at Panchito's, Beck Karges, said. "It was mayhem."

Another officer was injured when the suspect fired his gun from within the Village Tannery, shattering the front window, Mr. Kelly said.

By 10 p.m., two helicopters with searchlights were hovering over the scene and details from the Emergency Service and mounted units had also descended on the area.

The shooting spree brings the number of officers assaulted in the line of duty over the last two days to more than eight.

With the city already tense as a grand jury weighs indictments against police officers in the Sean Bell case, the latest shooting threatened the calm of a metropolis lately unaccustomed to such ferocious violence.

The last time a police officer was killed in the city was Eric Hernandez, 24, on January 28, 2006. He was shot while off-duty by another police officer. The last time an auxiliary police officer was killed was on December 2^nd, 1993, in the Bronx, when Milton Clarke, 47, was shot by a man he had been in a dispute with, according to an article in the New York Times. He was off duty.

Marshalik, who would have turned 20 years old in two weeks, wanted to be a lawyer after he graduated in 2009, officials said. He lived in an NYU dormitory, Greenwich Hotel, and listed "law enforcement" as one of his interests on the social networking site, Facebook.com. Pekearo's family told Mayor Bloomberg that a publisher had recently expressed interest in his first book. He lived in Nassau County.

Earlier in the day, Mayor Bloomberg said the two officers seriously injured during encounters with suspects on Tuesday night were expected to fully recover.

A man stopped by police in Harlem at about 9:30 p.m. drew his gun and shot Officer Robert Tejada in the stomach and ankle, police said. A bulletproof vest slowed one bullet, preventing it from causing a serious injury. Mr. Bloomberg said the officer would carry a slug in his ankle for the rest of his life. Other officers shot and killed the suspect, identified as Corey Mickins, 25.

About an hour later, a man who was being issued a summons for smoking on a subway platform in the East New York section of Brooklyn, Hugo Hernandez, sliced and stabbed a police officer in the head. Officer Angel Cruz had asked Hernandez, 30, and another man if they had any weapons. His companion, Andrew Battiste, 21, handed the officer his ID and a knife.

Hernandez pulled out a hunting knife with a 6-inch blade and sliced Officer Cruz on the left side of his head, a police spokesman, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, said. Officer Cruz stumbled backward and fired three times at Hernandez, who again attacked him, this time stabbing the knife into the officer's skull and fracturing it. Officer Cruz fired two more times. Hernandez was hit twice in the elbow, but fled down into the subway. During the melee, Mr. Battiste fled back to Freeport, N.J., where the two men live.

Officer Cruz chased the man onto the platform, where responding officers arrested him. Both men were in stable condition yesterday. Officer Cruz went through multi-hour surgery, officials said. "Nobody should think that he's out of the woods yet," the mayor warned. Another officer broke his arm during the scuffle with Hernandez.

Hernandez, who hails from Guatemala, has a lengthy criminal record that includes two charges of assaulting a police officer in New Jersey, Mr. Browne said.

He was charged yesterday with attempted murder of a police officer in the first degree, assault in the first and second degrees, aggravated assault of a police or peace officer, and criminal possession of a weapon, a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney's office said. On the attempted murder charge he faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

"I just think it's another example of the kinds of risks that the men and women who work in our police department endure every day," Mr. Bloomberg said. "They want to go home to their families."

A police officer was also injured in a confrontation with an illegal street vendor yesterday afternoon. The officer approached the illegal street vendor on Church Street and a struggle ensued, police said, sending the two men crashing through the window of a Westside Coffee Shop on Church Street in the Tribeca section of Manhattan. The officer was taken to Bellevue Hospital and treated for lacerations to his hand and chest.