Ariel view of the crime scene

Bereaved NYPD officers outside Jacobi Hospital, in the Bronx, NY where the two injured officers were receiving treatment. One of them later succumbed to his injuries

An NYPD sergeant was killed and a second officer wounded in the Bronx Friday after they crept up to a robbery suspect’s car and the ex-con opened fire when they were just two feet away, law enforcement sources said.
Manuel Rosales, 35, died in a hail of gunfire but not before killing Sergeant Paul Tuozzolo during the 3 p.m. shooting in Parkchester, Bronx, NY on Friday.
Tuozzolo. A second officer, sergeant as Emmanuel Kwowas, 30, was hit in the right leg in the ambush. He is expected to survive.
Rosales of Brentwood, LI, opened fire from inside his Jeep with a .45 caliber semiautomatic as soon as Tuozzolo left his vehicle, the 19-year NYPD veteran twice was struck in the head and chest before two officers shot the career criminal dead during a ferocious gun battle.
41-year-old Tuozzolo, lived with his wife and two sons, ages 3 and 4, in Huntington, Long Island.
The incident unfolded after the gunman broke into his estranged wife’s apartment on Noble Ave in the Bronx about 2:45 p.m., police said.
The woman caller reported to 911 dispatchers that the suspect, a career criminal from Long Island who has a long rap sheet,  was armed.

By the timer patrol cars were dispatched to the scene, Rosales fled in a red Jeep Cherokee.
Officers inside a marked patrol car spotted the vehicle outside a storage facility on Bronx River Ave., Rosales reportedly, tried to make a U-turn, but the cops boxed him in.
Four cops were at the scene when Tuozzolo and Kwowas approached the SUV with their weapons drawn and demanded the suspect step out from behind the wheel.
There was no response, so the officers inched closer, sources said.
They could not see Rosales’ 45-caliber semi-automatic handgun. When the sergeants were within two feet of the jeep, Rosales opened fire striking Tuozzolo and Kwowas and provoking a firefight with police that was caught on video.

One of the officers returning fire was a 25-year-old NYPD recruit on field training,
“He handled himself like a 30-year veteran,” Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch said of the recruit.
Rosales’ body could be seen hanging out the front driver’s side window of the van after he was shot, with a puddle of blood below. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The injured officers were rushed to Jacobi Medical Center. Tuozzolo’s family was still enroute to the hospital when he die.

“I always talk about what a great job this is, but there’s nothing worse than a day like today,” NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said.
The perp, who records show, had 17 prior arrests and served three stints in prison, turned up at the Bronx home Thursday night and threatened to kill his estranged wife, who had an order of protection against him.

NYPD officer inspects scene where Manuel Rosales died in a gun battle with cops after he shot and killed Sergeant Tuozzolo and injured another officer

Sources said the 29-year-old mother of Rosales’s child had been held hostage by him for nearly four hours before he fled. A 3-year -old boy and another child, 13, were in the home along with a 50-year-old woman who made the 911 call. But when the police officers showed up, Rosales was gone. The caller described his Jeep, enabling cops to find him.
Rosales whose first visit to jail lasted from July 2001 to Dec. 2002 for unauthorized use of a vehicle, was again locked up from July 2006 and March 2010 on charges of assault and driving without license. He also served time from April 2012 to June 2014, on charges of possessing stolen property.
He was arrested twice earlier this year for domestic violence in Suffolk County. He was due in court on Nov. 16.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill rushed to Jacobi, where they were joined by other brass. “It is with tremendous sorrow that I inform you of the murder of Sergeant Tuozollo.” De Blasio said later Friday at a somber news conference.
“The city is in mourning and the NYPD is in mourning.”
Commissioner O’Neil said:“I always talk about what a great job this is, but there’s nothing worse than a day like today,” O’Neill said. The surviving, he said, was “devastated as we all are.”

Mayor de Blasio and  Commissioner James O’Neill address the media at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, Friday

Governor Cuomo, in a statement, expressed condolences to the officer’s family.
“Every day, the brave men and women of law enforcement selflessly serve our communities to keep the rest of us safe,” he said. “Today, a sergeant in the New York City Police Department has made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, and another officer is undergoing treatment.
“My deepest sympathies are with the families of the officers involved in today’s tragedy in the Bronx, and with Commissioner O’Neill and the NYPD as they cope with the loss of one of their own.”