Just a few miles from where Mayor de Blasio was touting last month’s 34 percent drop in shootings, two of New York’s Finest were gunned down at point-blank range in a Bronx housing project.
The good news is that Officers Diara Cruz, 24, and Patrick Espeut, 29, will recover — though Cruz was seriously wounded.
Yet it’s still a painful reminder of the constant dangers police officers face day-in, day-out. And especially so while doing “vertical patrols” in project stairwells — as Officers Cruz and Espeut were at the Melrose Houses on E. 156th Street.
These are the same patrols that longtime cop critics — backed by Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin — declared “intentionally discriminatory” against blacks and Latinos.
Never mind that the patrols protect the overwhelmingly minority residents of these projects, so many of whom are victimized in elevators and stairwells, like the ones these two young cops were patrolling.
Critics like the New York Civil Liberties Union claimed the patrols “placed New Yorkers under siege in their own homes.”
Residents themselves, on the other hand, are usually quite thankful — and quick to demand patrols in the wake of violent incidents.
Incidents like the Thursday night episode when, cops say, the officers encountered Malik Chavis and two other men (who, it later turned out, Chavis had intended to rob).
Asked for ID, Chavis said his was upstairs — but as they reached the top floor, he wheeled around and fired three shots, hitting both officers.
Chavis — recently released from prison for armed robbery — then ran to a friend’s apartment and killed himself.
It’s impossible not to draw a comparison with Officer Peter Liang, now on trial for the tragic shooting death of Akai Gurley in a similar situation at a Brooklyn project.
But that incident took place in a dark stairwell. The stairs in Thursday night’s attack were well-lit — which demonstrates even more the dangers of vertical patrols.
And reminds us, yet again, that cops aren’t the problem — they’re the answer.