A Guyana-born New York City police officer died after he was shot in the head while chasing a gunman in East Harlem yesterday, the authorities said.
The officer, Randolph Holder, 33, a Guyanese immigrant and a police officer for five years, was the fourth killed in the line of duty in the past 11 months, the police commissioner, William J. Bratton, said during an emotional news conference early today, the New York Times reported. A suspect was in custody, the commissioner said.
Holder and his partners were responding to reports of gunshots around 8:30 p.m. when they encountered a man riding a bicycle on East 120th Street on a pedestrian path over Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. Gunfire was exchanged, and Holder was hit in the head.
He was taken in critical condition to Harlem Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead at 10:22 p.m., Bratton said.
“He ran toward danger,” Commissioner Bratton said. “It was the last time he will respond to that call.”
Holder was the son and grandson of police officers.
“Three generations of police in this family. And now the latest generation served here with us in the New York City Police Department,” Bratton said.
