NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – A family murder in Queens where four people were killed turned into a fatal NYPD shooting when officers responded to a call for help from a young girl Sunday morning and were attacked by the suspect, according to police.
The NYPD said that they received a report at 5:10 a.m. Sunday morning from a young female caller who said that her cousin was killing her family.
Two officers responded to a driveway at 467 Beach 22nd Street in Far Rockaway where they encountered a man with luggage.
“Our officers asked the male a question or two, an encounter that lasted about 10 seconds, where the male draws a knife on our officers. He stabs one officer in the neck, chest area. He strikes the second officer in the head,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said at a press conference Sunday morning.
Maddrey said that the officer who was slashed in the neck and chest with the steak knife pulled out his gun and shot the suspect to death.
The two officers are recovering in Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens and are expected to survive, authorities said.
The identities of the injured police have yet to be released, but the NYPD confirmed that one is 52 and the other is 48, serving 28 and 16 years on the job, respectively.
“The perpetrator has been identified as a Mr. Courtney Gordon. He is a male, 38-years-old. He has one prior arrest and that was for a strangulation domestic violence incident that took place in the Bronx,” Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny said.
Kenny confirmed that Gordon, of the Bronx, was a relative of the deceased.
Following the shooting, back-up officers responded to the private home.
Officers first saw an 11-year-old girl and 61-year-old woman, each with multiple stab wounds.
Police weren't able to immediately enter the residence because Gordon had allegedly set a couch on fire. Once the active fire was extinguished, officers discovered the remaining bodies of the stabbed family.
The victims killed include an 11-year-old girl, 12-year-old boy, 44-year-old woman and man in his thirties.
“We have a male 12-year-old, a female 44-year-old, and a male in his thirties, were found inside two back bedrooms of the location. You have the female 11-year-old, was found in front of the location, transported to Cohen’s Children’s Hospital, where unfortunately she passed away,” Kenny said.
The other woman, 61, was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital in critical condition, officials said.
Police are investigating the incident.