A 70th Precinct cop’s instinct and training kicked into high gear recently, leading to another gun being taken off the street and earning the officer “Cop of the Month” honors.
Police officer William Diab was handed his first plaque for such honors at last week’s community council meeting.
According to 70th Precinct commanding officer Dep. Inspector Ralph Monteforte, the incident unfolded at about 5 p.m. April 4 in front of 65 East 19th Street, when Diab responded to a call of shots fired.
Upon arriving at the scene, as people were running away, Diab came across a victim shot once in the leg. At the same time some people in the crowd were yelling and pointing toward a suspected perpetrator.
Diab quickly pounced on the suspect and recovered a loaded .357-madnum handgun form the suspect’s waistband.
Incidentally, the perpetrator who had the gun turned out not to be the shooter, but following a brief investigation the precinct was able to apprehend the shooter about an hour later, Monteforte said.
“There are a lot of great cops in this precinct who do a lot of great work every month and it’s hard to pick one but this guy deserved the Cop of the Month honors,” said Monteforte.
“It’s another incident where when bystanders are running away from a crime scene a police officer is running toward it with eyes and ears open,” he added.
Monteforte said Diab was able to utilize his police training, intelligence and observations in making the collar without anybody getting hurt.
Diab, a three-year veteran, said when the incident happened he was a little nervous, but then his adrenalin and police training kicked in, enabling him to make the bust.
