Thugs Picked Wrong Victim for Stick-Up
NYPD Sgt. Esteban Abreu had parked his car in the early-morning hours of Jan. 18 and was walking to his Bronx apartment, where his mother and son were waiting for him, when three men surrounded him. Two were carrying knives and one had a gun in his waistband.
One of them cut his jacket and took his cell phone.
‘Don’t Take My Life’
“I just came out of work,” he told them. “I’m going to see my son. Don’t take my life.”
“Be quiet, you c---.”
One went into his pocket and took his cell phone.
“My money’s in my left front pocket,” he said.
The response: “Shut up.”
One of the robbers took his wallet, dropped it, picked it up and pressed the button to open it. His Sergeant’s badge fell out.
“He’s a cop,” the man yelled. “Shoot him! Shoot him!”
“Once I heard that, I didn’t have any other option,” said Sergeant Abreu, 33, who was one of eight officers honored Sept. 15 by the Sergeants Benevolent Association. He shot the robber closest to him, who was wielding a knife. The robber with the gun did not have a chance to pull it, he said.
Wrong Moment to Shoot
That man and the third assailant ran, with Sergeant Abreu in pursuit. He and one robber stopped right in front of his apartment building, where his mother and his son, now 5, were waiting in the window. The Sergeant knew this was no time for gunplay. “I didn’t want him aiming at her,” he said.
His son saw what was going on and “he started screaming, ‘They shot my dad! They shot my dad!’”
The armed man put down his gun and resumed running. Sergeant Abreu returned to the wounded robber, shouting for his neighbors to call 911. He asked them to tell police that the man in casual clothes with the gun was a cop, but some of them apparently just said the officer had been wounded.
“Once I started seeing the lights [of the approaching radio cars], I put myself on my knees, threw my gun as far as possible and put my hands up as high as possible,” he said.
Took Some Convincing
Two officers pointed their weapons at him. “I am a Sergeant,” he told them. “I work in PSA 8. Please don’t shoot.” They asked him a couple of questions that only cops could answer. (“What’s your tour?” “What’s a 10-63?” which is a meal.) Then, convinced, they helped him get up.
With the immediate danger past, he said, “I was trying to cool down. I started getting nervous. I started shaking.”
They took him to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, where SBA representatives showed up. “Everyone was telling me I did a great job, trying to calm me down,” he said.
Reflecting on the incident, Mr. Abreu, who has been a cop for 10 years and a Sergeant for two of them, said, “Thank God it happened the way it happened. Three individuals, no backup, no radio. I’m just grateful to be here.”
