Brian Moore, New York Police Officer Shot in the Head, Has Died

Officer Brian Moore, 25 

New York Police Department

Brian Moore, New York Police Officer Shot in the Head, Has Died

Monday May 4th, 2015 at 3:12 PM

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The plainclothes New York City police officer who was shot in the face Saturday as he approached an armed man on a Queens street died from his injuries on Monday, the police commissioner, William J. Bratton, said.

The officer, Brian Moore, 25, had been in critical condition at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center since Saturday evening when fellow officers rushed him to the emergency room from the residential street where the shooting occurred.

“I did not know this officer in person in life, I’ve only come to know him in death,” Mr. Bratton said to reporters outside the hospital Monday afternoon.

He called Officer Moore “an extraordinary young man” and said that his death was “a great loss to this profession and to this city.”

Officer Moore and a partner had been patrolling an area of Queens Village in an unmarked car when, the police said, they observed a man adjusting his waistband. They pulled up behind him to question him and as they did so, the police said, the man turned and fired at the car.

Officer Moore was struck in the cheek and suffered trauma to his brain, officials said. His family made a decision to take him off life support on Monday. Mr. Bratton sat with the family shortly before he was taken off life support, officials said. Officer Moore’s partner, Erik Jansen, was not hit.

Ninety minutes after the shooting, officers arrested Demetrius Blackwell, 35, at a house a block from the scene of the shooting, near the corner of 212th Street and 104th Road.

Mr. Blackwell was arraigned on Sunday in Queens County Criminal Court on charges including attempted murder, assault and weapons possession. With Officer Moore’s death, those charges were expected to be elevated to include murder.

After more than a day of searching, the gun used in the shooting was found by detectives Monday morning around some rubble in a backyard that officials said was along the short route they suspected Mr. Blackwell took after the shooting. The gun, a .38-caliber revolver, had two live bullets and three expended casings.

The police said three .38-caliber rounds were fired at the officers, two striking their car and one hitting Officer Moore.