Anticipation rises for NYPD sergeant who was shot to leave hospital

KIPS BAY, Manhattan (PIX11) -- Anticipation is high for an NYPD sergeant to be released from the hospital the day after he was shot by a man who had just been collared on a burglary charge by the sergeant and another supervising cop. 

Both men were shot in the incident by a man who police say was out on probation for another crime, and who's waiting to go before a judge. It's all happening hours after one of the two arresting cops was discharged from the hospital, to head home to recover. 

That officer, a 34-year-old sergeant with 11 years on the force, received a hero's reception when he was released from medical care at Bellevue Hospital on Thursday evening. With dozens of fellow officers saluting, and then applauding boisterously, the neighborhood coordination sergeant was moved out of the front door of Bellevue in a wheelchair, with his pregnant wife and his mother on either side of him. 

The as-yet unnamed sergeant had suffered a graze wound in the shooting that left the other sergeant under medical watch on Thursday evening into Friday night. 

The other sergeant, whose name has also not been released officially, is a 43-year-old public safety sergeant in the 5th precinct, who's been on the force for 16 years. He was shot in the groin, police say, in a scene that witnesses called intense. 

"It was crazy. It was crazy!" exclaimed a man who only gave the name, Kano. "It was like a movie."

He was at the arrest scene on Eldridge Street at Delancey Street on Thursday afternoon. Just after 4 p.m., witnesses saw a man who police identified as Joshua Dorsett, 22, pull a gun from his pocket while the sergeants tried to cuff him. Then, he fired.

"One police was screaming, 'I'm shot!'" said Francisco Huayta, an eyewitness. "They took him right away." 

Police said that Dorsett had used the same gun with which he shot at the cops to hold up people at a gathering four blocks away from where he was taken into custody. At around 4 p.m. on Thursday, cops say, Dorsett made off with cash from the gathering, and fled. 

People at the gathering, which was a mahjong parlor, called police immediately. Dozens of officers were on the chase, and when the two sergeants collared him, according to their supervisors, they threw him onto a taxicab hood and tried to cuff him. That's when he fired, and one bullet struck both men, according to the police commissioner. 

"They're lucky to be alive," said Edward Caban, the NYPD commissioner, at a news conference on Thursday at Bellevue. 

It's the same place from which the second sergeant is expected to be released at some time on Friday. 

Meanwhile, Dorsett, the suspect, is expected to be led out of the Fifth Precinct station house on Friday, to be arraigned before a judge.