The shooting occurred at about 4:30 p.m. inside a paid parking lot on Broadway near West 187th Street, in the Washington Heights neighborhood, police said.
The officer, who was not immediately identified, was taken to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital with a wound under his right arm, police said. He was expected to survive.
The gunman, who also was not identified, was hit in the chest and died a half-hour later at a nearby hospital, police said. A black handgun was recovered from him. Early reports that there were two gunmen turned out to be false.
The incident began at 4:24 p.m. when a 911 caller reported that someone was firing a gun at the corner of Wadsworth Avenue and 187th Street, the police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, said during a news conference at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital.
Moments later, two plainclothes officers from the 34th Precinct arrived in an unmarked car and spotted a man with a gun fleeing down 187th Street toward Broadway, O’Neill said.
One of the officers got out of the car and chased the gunman on foot as he ran around the corner and into a parking lot on Broadway. The fleeing man hid behind a car at the back of the lot and fired three rounds, hitting the officer under his right arm. The wounded officer managed to fire back once.
“The amount of courage this police officer showed is quite unbelievable,” O’Neill said.
Then, the second officer barreled into the parking lot in the unmarked police car, jumped out and started firing from behind the driver’s side door, the commissioner said. He squeezed off three shots at the gunman. One of the gunman’s bullets went through the windshield of the police car where the driver sits.
“This was a fast, intense episode,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “We saw, from the video we observed, a very, very dangerous situation unfold.”
The shootout was filmed by a security camera and by one of the officer’s body cameras, the police said.
Ahuva Kaplan, 25, who lives across the street from the scene, said she witnessed the events through her window. She saw the man hide behind a car and draw a gun. “They chased him into the parking lot,” she said. “Then I heard gunshots, about five.”
She said many more officers arrived over the next few minutes. “A loud speaker on a police car said, ‘come out! Come out!’” Kaplan said. “They were trying to get him out and there was more fire. He was behind a car, hiding.”
On Thursday evening, dozens of officers combed through the parking lot, sandwiched between two buildings on the east side of Broadway, looking for evidence.
Jorge Ozuna, 65, said he was walking nearby when he heard shots ring out. “It came from inside a parking lot,” Ozuna said. “A lot of police officers came running with guns in their hands.”
A few minutes later, he said, the wounded officer was carried away by two other officers.
“He seemed alert, conscious,” Ozuna said. “He was touching his hurt arm.”
Father Ambiorix Rodriguez said he was preparing for Mass at St. Elizabeth Church on Wadsworth Avenue and 187th Street when he began getting messages about the gunshots and the wounded officer.
“As soon as I heard, I began praying for him,” he said. “We have had some shootings here recently.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.