A New York City police detective and four children were among the people injured in separate shootings across Brooklyn during a violent Fourth of July holiday weekend.
NYPD Detective Robert Karroll, assigned to the Sex Offender Monitoring Unit, was struck in the back of his ballistic vest during an encounter with an armed 18-year-old in Crown Heights early Sunday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news briefing later that morning.
Karroll was transported to Kings County Hospital, where officials said he is expected to recover fully. Another officer involved in the incident sustained bruising to the face and shoulder.
Scott Munro, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, condemned the wave of violence.
NYPD crime scene investigators work at the location where an officer was shot in the vest near Nostrand Avenue and St. John’s Place in Brooklyn, New York, on July 5, 2026. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“This has to stop,” Munro said during the Sunday morning news conference. “Three weeks ago we had a detective shot – in the same hospital. This has the stop. Our members are out there day and night hours and hours protecting the people of the city of New York doing a job that they took an oath to take and they need to be respected and thank God this detective is going home.”
Munro also expressed relief that the department was not preparing for a funeral.
According to Tisch, officers working a mobile field force assignment were sitting in an unmarked police vehicle near Nostrand Avenue and St. Johns Place at about 4:14 a.m. ET when someone walked up to the car.
“Given the lack of body-worn camera in this incident, the circumstances of the approach are still unclear,” Tisch said, adding the shooting happened “quickly and unexpectedly.”
Ballistic damage is shown on the unmarked NYPD vehicle that officers were sitting in at the scene. The vehicle had bullet holes in the front and rear windshield and the passenger side of the car. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu)
That shooting came hours after four children were injured in Coney Island, where at least eight people were shot.
The victims included two men, two women and four children, ages 14, 12, 7 and 6. All were taken to hospitals. Seven were listed in stable condition, while a 21-year-old woman was in critical condition, police said.
In the shooting of the officers, Tisch said officers got out of the vehicle and tried to engage the armed suspect before three officers fired their weapons. The suspect was not struck, she said. The police vehicle had ballistic damage, including bullet holes in the front and rear windshields and on the passenger side.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch speak at a Sunday morning news conference after a spate of weekend shootings in Brooklyn. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu)
After a foot chase, the suspect was apprehended several blocks away near Rogers Avenue and Union Street. Tisch said he resisted arrest and refused to be handcuffed before officers deployed a taser and took him into custody. A SAR 9mm firearm was recovered.
“I’m relieved that the officer, Detective Robert Karroll, was wearing a bulletproof vest and was not seriously injured as a result of it,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at the news conference, relieved at the survival of “a husband and father of three children.”
Tisch said the officers had been reassigned to the area shortly before midnight as part of the department’s Fourth of July violence reduction plan targeting ongoing crew violence.
Investigators were canvassing nearby businesses for surveillance footage because there was no body-camera video of the shooting itself.
