NYPD: Man shot at officers from Manhattan apartment and police returned fire — no fatalities

Police on Tuesday said a man barricaded himself in an apartment on the Lower East Side and shot several times at officers, one of whom returned fire.

Both the officer and man, whom police identified as 35-year-old Edwin Rivera, were expected to recover, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press briefing. She did not identify the officer, but said he is a detective in the department’s Emergency Service Unit.

Officials said the incident began around 5 a.m., when officers attempted to execute a search warrant for a man with guns in the apartment, which is located on Madison Street at the New York City Housing Authority’s Vladeck Houses. Rivera, who was out on parole for a charge of resisting arrest, fired several rounds at officers when they approached the apartment, striking one in his bulletproof vest, Tisch said.

The officers did not return fire at that time, and instead reorganized and contacted Rivera and his family over FaceTime, according to the commissioner. Rivera barricaded himself inside the apartment with an upright couch against the door, Tisch said.

Around 8:15 a.m., said Tisch, officers lost contact with Rivera and tried to move the couch away from the door to gain entry into the apartment. At that point, Rivera allegedly opened fire again, striking the detective in his left shoulder. Police returned fire and hit Rivera several times on his left side, but he was expected to survive, officials said.

“This could have ended very differently, and we should not have been at his door this morning in the first place,” Tisch said, calling Rivera a “career criminal” with multiple prior arrests. He was currently out on parole, she added, and was last arrested on Nov. 6, for criminal possession of stolen property and resisting arrest.

“The Manhattan [District Attorney] only charged him with resisting arrest,” Tisch said. “Sadly and predictably, and although he was on active parole, he was released the very next day.”

In a written statement, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the shooting was “another sobering reminder of how members of the NYPD put themselves in danger” to keep the public safe, adding that he was grateful the detective was expected to recover.

The DA’s office said Rivera served prison time from 2019 to 2023 for a gun- and drug-related conviction and was paroled upon his release. He committed no more crimes in Manhattan until he allegedly stole an electric scooter in November, according to the office. But the charges Rivera faced in that case were not eligible for bail, Bragg’s office said, so he could not have been held in custody unless he had committed a parole violation.

A lawyer for Rivera could not immediately be reached, and the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which supervises people on parole, did not respond to a request for comment.

Speaking at the press conference, Mayor Eric Adams said he had visited the detective at Bellevue Hospital and found him in good spirits. “We’re grateful for his safety but we’re also angry,” Adams said, referring to the incident on Tuesday.

This story has been updated with additional information and to clarify the order of events.