“Good morning. We are here at Lutheran Medical Center with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Chief of the Department Joe Esposito, Chief of Patrol James Hall, Emergency Service Unit Assistant Chief Harry Wedin, Commanding Officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South Assistant Chief Thomas Chan and Dr. Eli Kleinman, the NYPD’s Chief Surgeon.

“We just visited members of the Department who were injured in a shooting this morning that we wanted to brief you on: Captain Al Pizzano, Detective Kenneth Ayala, Detective Mike Keenan and Police Officer Matthew Granahan. Fortunately, all are in stable condition and are expected to fully recover.

“Last night, units responded to a 911 call of a man with a gun at 3301 Nostrand Avenue, which is within the 61^st precinct. Commissioner Kelly can walk you through the details, but in short the armed suspect – Nakwon Foxworth – barricaded himself in his apartment with a woman and a baby inside. When she managed to escape with the baby, the officers began to enter and the suspect opened fire. The officers returned fire, striking the suspect who is currently being treated at Kings County Hospital.

“While crime is down something like 46 percent in the 61^st precinct since 2001, we still have too many people who have no business possessing a weapon who are armed on our streets.

“We have now had eight – that’s correct, eight – members of the department shot in the last four months. And this is the second time in the last 24 hours police have been fired upon by armed assailants.

“All the shootings have a disgraceful fact in common: all were committed with illegal guns that came from out of state. And that is the case with nearly every shooting in our city.

“We got very lucky tonight, with no life-threatening injuries to officers or innocent bystanders. But sometimes, as you remember, we aren’t so lucky, as we saw with the murder of Police Officer Peter Figoski in December.

“We will continue to do everything that we can take illegal weapons off our streets, but until Congress wakes up and finds some courage to stand up to the gun lobby, illegal guns will continue to end up in the hands of dangerous people like tonight’s shooter, who had a small arsenal of illegal guns.

“At this point, I don’t know what it’s going to take for Congress to start protecting police officers and citizens – as opposed to the gun lobby – but we are going to continue our fight to convince them to act.

“If that means we have to start calling Senators and Members of Congress in the middle of the night when we get these shooting calls, maybe we should just start doing that. Let me have Police Commissioner Kelly brief you. Ray?”