FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Brooklyn Man Who Shot NYPD Emergency Service Officers Convicted of Aggravated Assault Of a Police Officer
Officers Shot After Defendant Barricaded Himself Inside An Apartment He Shared With His Pregnant Girlfriend And 10-Month-Old Son
District Attorney Ken Thompson today announced that a 36-year-old man was convicted last night of two counts of aggravated assault upon a police officer and other charges for shooting at and injuring five members of the New York City Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit when they responded to a call at the defendant’s Sheepshead Bay apartment. The police were called after reports that the defendant had pointed a gun at someone during an earlier altercation.
District Attorney Thompson said, “Police officers put their lives on the line every day to keep us all safe. This defendant not only had the audacity to fire at our police officers, he recklessly put the pregnant mother of his baby in harm’s way. The jury has spoken and now the defendant will spend many well-deserved years behind bars.”
The District Attorney said that the defendant, Nakwon Foxworth, 36, of 3301 Nostrand Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault upon a police officer, three counts of attempted aggravated assault upon a police officer, three counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and second-degree menacing, following a jury trial before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Neil Firetog, who set sentencing for April 23, 2015, at which time the defendant faces up to life in prison. The defendant is a mandatory persistent violent felony offender.
The District Attorney said that, according to trial testimony, on April 8, 2012, the defendant got into a verbal dispute with movers in his building over items left in a hallway. The defendant pulled a gun on the workers and the police were called. The defendant then returned to the apartment he shared with his girlfriend, Jessica Hickling, and their 10-month-old son, armed with a gun.
Approximately an hour after police arrived, the defendant allowed Hickling and the baby to leave the apartment. The defendant then opened fire on the responding officers, injuring three of them. The officers then returned fire and struck the defendant. Three guns were recovered from the defendant’s apartment.
The District Attorney said that Officer Matthew Granahan was shot in the leg, Officer Michael Keenan was shot in the knee and Officer Kenneth Ayala was shot in the pelvic area and the foot. All of the officers were hospitalized and have recovered from their injuries.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Andres Palacio of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau and Assistant District Attorney Thomas Teplitsky under supervision of Deputy District Attorney Kenneth Taub, Chief of Homicide Bureau.