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Kevlar Vest Saved Cop's Life In Bronx Shooting
By
Ben Muessig
Published Mar 23, 2010
Modified Mar 23, 2010
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By
Ben Muessig
Published Mar 23, 2010
Modified Mar 23, 2010
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The cop shot three times in an "ambush" in a South Bronx housing project yesterday wouldn't have survived if he wasn't wearing a bullet-resistant vest at the time. Officer Robert Salerno, 25, was hit twice in the lower torso, but his Kevlar armor protected him from a shot to the chest fired by a 57-year-old who was furious that a home health aide had turned down his romantic advances.
According to the Post, Salerno and three other cops were responding to reports of an armed man inside the Morrisania Air Rights houses on Park Avenue at around 12:30 p.m. when they encountered the shooter, identified as Santiago Urena. Police had been notified that Urena had threatened and menaced a health worker who was in his second-floor apartment caring for his 92-year-old mother. "[The aide] said the guy was disrespecting her, trying to rap to her," a neighbor said. "She was telling [Urena] he knows she is married and she has a husband in Santo Domingo. So she said something to him, and he smacked the s--- out of her and knocked her to the ground, and then after that, she said he pulled out the gun."
When Salerno entered the apartment, Urena—who had no criminal record—fired four shots, hitting the Salerno at least three times (a fourth round might have deflected off of his utility belt, the Times reports). Salerno responded by unloading his 16-round clip, and the other cops fired five shots before dragging the wounded cop out of the building and getting him to the hospital. Paramedics found Urena dead with a fatal shot to the head, though it's unclear if the gunman was killed by police or if he took his own life. "The nature of the wound was such that could possibly have been self inflicted," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told WCBS.
Mayor Bloomberg visited Salerno and his family at Lincoln Hospital (Bloomberg actually knew Salerno's father because the Mayor used to buy coffee from the cop's dad's store while wintering in Westchester in the 1980s). Salerno is in serious but stable condition. Urena's brother said his sibling was going through a difficult period after losing his job and the recent death of his father. "You know, those things get to you. He got to the point where he did not care about life," Demetrio Urena told the Daily News. "We just buried my father. Now we are going to bury my brother."
Tagged
cops
housing project
mayor bloomberg
morrisania air rights houses
nypd
police
police department
Ray Kelly
robert salerno
santiago urena
shooting
South Bronx
Ben Muessig
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