NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – An NYPD detective is lucky to be alive after he was shot at a Lower East Side apartment building Tuesday morning during an hours-long standoff with an armed "career criminal" who the police commissioner said should have been in jail instead of out shooting at cops.
Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch visited the officer at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, where he was in stable condition, in "good spirits" and expected to make a full recovery after being shot in the upper arm.
"We're angry because the shooter's a violent repeated offender with prior gun arrests who was on parole for narcotics use and sales," Adams said. "We're angry that this man was back on our streets, possessing yet another firearm to ultimately shoot an NYPD officer."
Tisch said the suspect, 35-year-old Edwin Rivera, is a convicted felon with multiple prior arrests for gun possession and narcotics who has been on parole four times and is currently on parole. She said this wasn't even the first time he's been arrested while on his current parole—he was busted Nov. 6, 2024, for criminal possession of stolen property and resisting arrest.
"This could have ended very differently, and we should not have been at his door this morning in the first place," Tisch said, noting the bullet hit the detective's arm and narrowly missed "critical vessels and nerves that could have been life-ending."
An NYPD Emergency Services Unit team was attempting to execute a gun-related search warrant inside a sixth-floor apartment at 384 Madison St.—inside inside NYCHA's Vladeck Houses—around 5:10 a.m. when "they were immediately fired upon by the perpetrator," who Tisch said fired five to six rounds, striking a ballistic shield.
Officers did not return fire, and the team tactically repositioned into the hallway. "At this point, the perpetrator barricaded himself in the apartment with a couch upright, blocking the doorway," Tisch said.
While negotiators initially made contact with Rivera over FaceTime, they eventually lost communication, and the ESU team moved in at 8:18 a.m. to try to move the couch, Tisch said.
"The perpetrator shot multiple rounds at our officers again, this time striking an ESU detective with one round in the left shoulder," Tisch said.
Officers returned fire this time and struck Rivera multiple times. He too was hospitalized at Bellevue and is expected to survive.
During the press conference, Tisch slammed a legal system that she said allowed Rivera to be out on parole despite his criminal history and recent run--ins with the law.
After he was arrested in November for criminal possession of stolen property and resisting arrest, she said, "The Manhattan D.A. only charged him with resisting arrest, and so sadly, and predictably, and although he was on active parole, he was released the very next day."
“So the real question here is—why was this individual out of jail and in a position to shoot our officers?” Tisch said. “How is the system set up to allow one person to commit multiple violent offenses while out on parole with no consequences? I ask our elected officials up in Albany, our D.A.s and our judges, 'What are you doing here?'”