POLICE OFFICER SHOT IN B'KLYN

A police officer was shot Wednesday night in Brooklyn by a driver he
had stopped after spotting him buying marijuana near a
violence-plagued public housing project, authorities said.

The officer managed to return fire and was fired at again as the
suspect sped off, police said.

"They never even got a chance to talk to the guy; he shot the officer
from the car," an investigator at the scene said.

After an intensive manhunt, the suspect was found holed up in a
Brownsville apartment. Emergency Service Unit officers stormed the
16th-floor apartment in the Sethlow Houses after hearing a gunshot.
The suspect had killed himself with a bullet to the head, police said.

The wounded officer, Patrick Caprice, 42, a decorated 14-year veteran,
was rushed to The Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in
a patrol car, where he was in stable condition after undergoing
surgery for four bullet wounds, one of them an exit wound.

"His vest may have stopped another bullet from entering his chest and
saved his life," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the hospital. "The
perpetrator of this heinous crime appears to have committed suicide
shortly after the shooting."

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, also at the hospital, said Caprice was
hit in the stomach, the chest and the left forearm.

"Clearly, the vest has proven time and time again to be a lifesaver,"
Kelly said. "It is a critical piece of gear, no question about that."

Dr. Eli Kleinman, the Police Department's chief surgeon, said Caprice
was "doing very well" after surgery for a shot that cut through his
small intestine.

Police gave this account:

Caprice and his partner had stopped the suspect, identified as David
Redding, around 7:15 p.m. on the perimeter of Marcus Garvey Village
after seeing him buying marijuana from a man in front of 2 Grafton St.
The housing project is described by police as an "OK Corral" of violence.

On spotting the officers, Redding sped off in his mother's gold 1988
Ford Contour. The officers gave chase and saw Redding run several red
lights. At Bristol and Dumont avenues, as the officers pulled up to
the car, Redding fired a .45-cal. handgun from the window and hit
Caprice once.

Caprice returned fire, apparently hitting Redding in the shoulder. The
suspect fired again as he sped off, with the officers in hot pursuit.

Redding abandoned the car about a quarter-mile away after slamming it
into a black Lincoln near Mother Gaston Boulevard and Belmont Avenue.

Witnesses said they saw the suspect run into 131 Belmont Ave. at the
Sethlow Houses, where his mother owns an apartment on the 16th floor.

Police closed off streets in the area. Officers stood outside the
apartment for more than an hour, and they rushed in after hearing a
gunshot. Redding was dead from a single shot to the head.

A neighbor who knows Redding, who gave only his first name, Antoine,
25, said it is common for police to stop cars in Brownsville at night.

"They're pulling us over just because it's late at night," he said.
"If police know you're going to cop drugs, they'll hunt you down. The
environment around here causes us to over-react sometimes."