Three Cop Shooters Caught On Tape, One Man In Custody
One [man is in custody] for questioning and two others are being sought in connection with the tragic [shooting of two young police officers](http://www.amny.com/news/local/crime/am-shot0710,0,5042779.story?coll=am-topheadlines) yesterday during a traffic stop in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which was caught on tape by a daycare center surveillance camera. Just before 2:30 a.m., Officers Russel Timoshenko and Herman Yan pulled over a stolen black BMW SUV after a random check of the vehicles plates revealed that they were actually registered with another car. Police are now looking for two 34-year-old Queens residents, Dexter Bostic and Rober J. Ellis, one of whom is reportedly a parolee and a former employee of the dealership where the vehicle is believed to have been stolen.
According to reporters who have seen the surveillance footage, the video shows the two officers approaching the vehicle from the rear, Timoshenko toward the passengers side and Yen toward the drivers side. The two were fired at before they reached the car. Timoshenko, 23, who joined the force just 18 months ago, was shot twice in the face. He remains in a coma at Kings County Hospital Center with two .45-caliber bullets lodged in his head. Yan, a three-year force veteran, was shot in the chest and left forearm, and is now in stable condition. Yan is expected to make a full recovery, which Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly credited to his bulletproof vest. Additional footage from cameras near where the abandoned SUV was later found show three men escaping into a driveway. Shell casings were found in the vehicle, and three handguns were recovered from behind a nearby building. Police originally said that the security [tapes were too grainy] to provide detailed descriptions of the suspects.
The incident comes just a day after we told you that the city and is once again considering a plan to blanket Lower Manhattan with [thousands of security] and license-plate-reading cameras, just like in London. (Do we have to [copy them](http://www.amny.com/news/opinion/am-lettersa0709,0,6434056.story?coll=am-letters-headlines) on everything?) Lets just hope the Orwellian hyper-surveillance that now seems to be all the more likely after the shootings does more good than harm.
Photo courtesy of [TheeErin on Flickr]