A US police officer was ambushed and killed in an unprovoked attack after an ex-convict shot her in the head as she sat in her command vehicle.
Miosotis Familia, who had been with the New York Police Department for 12 years, was finishing her shift in the Bronx in the early hours of Wednesday morning when the man fired through the passenger side window.
Her partner immediately radioed for assistance and officers quickly responded to the scene.
#NYPD PO Miosotis Familia has been assassinated in an unprovoked attack on cops assigned to keep NYers safe. Keep her family in your prayers pic.twitter.com/yhRB7H5bvi
— Commissioner O'Neill (@NYPDONeill) July 5, 2017
They soon caught up with the suspect, 34-year-old Alexander Bonds, a block away.
When Bonds was confronted, he pulled a revolver on the officers, who then fired shots and killed him. One bystander was also hit by a bullet but is in a stable condition.
Familia, 48, was a mother of three and a member of NYPD’s anti-crime unit.
Patrolman’s Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch said: “Fully knowing the dangers that she faced, she suited up in uniform every day and stood tall against those who threaten and terrorise the good folks of the Bronx.”
Bonds had been sentenced to six years in prison for an armed robbery and was released on parole in 2013, with his supervision period set to end in May.
He’d expressed his disdain toward prisoners’ deaths in the hands of police in a video on Facebook in which he spoke about the treatment he’d received in prison.
He said in the video: “Don’t think every brother, cousin, uncle you got that get killed in jail is because of a Blood or Crip or Latin King killing them. Nah, police be killing them and saying that an inmate killed them.”
