ESU Detective Shot Executing Search Warrant Against LES Thug; Suspect Wounded & Arrested
NYPD Emergency Services Unit members attempted to execute a search warrant for firearms in a pre-dawn Vladeck Houses raid but were fired on by the suspect. After a three-hour standoff, cops entered the apartment and in an ensuing gunfight, a detective and the suspect were both wounded.
| 20 Feb 2025 | 11:03
Mayor Eric Adams (center) and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch (left) provide an update on an NYPD officer who was shot in the left shoulder during a press conference where the officer was rushed after the shooting. He was in stable condition. The suspect was in the same hospital after getting shot by cops but was listed as “not likely” to die. (
)
Crime scene from Madison Street side looking toward 384 Madison, Feb. 18, 2025 (
)
Entrance to 384 Madison Street, Vladeck Houses building where ESU officer was shot Feb. 18, 2025. (
)
NYCHA Welcome to Vladeck Houses Feb. 18, 2025 (
)
NYPD Forice Investigation Division van parked outside Vladeck Houses, Feb. 18, 2025. (
)
Plaza that serves numerous Vladeck Houses buildings including 384 Madison St. Feb 18, 2025. (
)
Photo of a gun that cops said was recovered at the scene. (
)
Cops at the crime scene at 384 Madison St. in the Vladek NYCHA apartments on the Lower East Side on the morning of Feb. 18. (
)
A detective who was attempting to execute a search warrant in a pre-dawn raid at a Lower East Side public housing project on Feb. 18 was shot in the left shoulder and rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where he is expected to make a full recovery.
Cops collared the suspect, identified as Edwin Rivera, 35. He fired at cops when they first attempted to raid the apartment at 5:09 a.m.
Cops initially did not return fire, police commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press conference at Bellevue on Feb. 18, because they believed a woman might be in the apartment with Rivera in a possible hostage situation. But that turned out to be unfounded.
The suspect eventually barricaded himself into the apartment and police brought in a hostage negotiating team and made contact via Facetime, but he eventually broke off contact. Police attempted to re-enter the apartment around 8:18 a.m. a.m. and as they were moving a couch away from a doorway, the suspect opened fire, wounding one ESU detective in the left shoulder. Police officers returned fire and the suspect was hit several times in on the left side. Both officer and suspect were rushed to Bellevue.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at the press conference, “The perpetrator right now, he is not in serious condition. He’s not likely to die.”
Tisch blasted the Manhattan DAs office for releasing Rivera in November, after he was arrested while on parole for an earlier offense.
Tish said Rivera is “a career criminal, convicted felon with multiple priors for gun possession and narcotics. He has been on parole four times and he is actually on parole today.
“And I want to be very clear that today is not the only time that Mr. Rivera has been arrested while out on his current parole,” Tisch lamented. “He was previously arrested on November 6th, 2024 for criminal possession of stolen property and resisting arrest. The Manhattan DA only charged him with resisting arrest and so sadly and predictably and, although he was on active parole, he was released the very next day.
Adams said the wounded officer was part of the Emergency Services Union. He “was doing what our police officers do every day, searching for bad guys with guns to get them off our streets,” Adams said. “And I just visited him and his family, his son and his wife. He’s in good spirits and just wants to get back to work.”
When Straus News arrived on the scene earlier that morning around 10 a.m., yellow crime scene tape ringed the plaza outside 384 Madison St., one of the 20 buildings in the NYCHA project known as Vladeck Houses and named for the Minsk-born activist
The mood among the officers on the scene was serious but congenial as news spread on Feb. 18 that the wounded officer was doing well. Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the wounded officer was not expected to need surgery.
But as of mid-day Feb. 19, the day after the shooting, the officer had not been discharged from Bellevue, a police spokesperson told Straus News.