NYPD shoot 23-year-old gunman in Harlem

Police shot and wounded a 23-year-old gunman who opened fire on a Harlem street Sunday evening, cops said.
Franklyn Nunez was in stable condition at Harlem Hospital with wounds to his chest and thigh after the 6:30 p.m. confrontation outside a 99-cent store on Frederick Douglass Blvd. and 143rd St.

Police said they recovered the suspect’s Colt .45.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Nunez was part of a crowd hanging out on the street but started to walk away as police approached.

Nunez broke into a run as the two cops started to follow him.

“He turns and fires a .45-caliber Colt 1911 pistol twice,” Browne said.

One of the officers returned fire twice, hitting Nunez twice, he said.

Although several witnesses said they did not see Nunez holding a gun as he was shot while leaping over a car, a police source said the young man had the firearm in his hand when he hit the sidewalk.

“The cop saw he was getting away and shot him,” said Jasmine Little, 19, of Harlem.

In the immediate and somewhat chaotic aftermath of the shooting, some Harlem residents sought to view the shooting in the broader context of race and recent gun violence, recalling the cases of Ramarley Graham, 18, who was fatally shot by a police officer in the Bronx last month, and Trayvon Martin, 17, whose death in Florida has set off a national outcry in the weeks since he was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer.

The victims in those shootings were unarmed.

Some residents berated officers as they gathered at the scene of the gunfire, apparently unaware of the circumstances of the shooting. One man shouted, “No justice, no peace!” — a phrase repeated often, and conveyed on signs, at recent rallies organized in the Florida teenager’s memory.

“Trayvon will raise the spirits of everyone who is shot like this,” said one woman, who gave only her first name, Jo. “But as you can see, it’s still going to happen.”

Immediately after the shooting, the scene grew tense as a crowd gathered and began chanting “No justice. No peace!”