The police officer being hailed a hero for shooting the suspect in the deadly terror attack in New York on Tuesday “thought this was all in a day’s work”, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday.
Beat officer Ryan Nash, 28, was at home on Long Island on leave on Wednesday after having shot the man who mowed down cyclists and pedestrians on a Manhattan cycle path and crashed the vehicle he was driving, leaping out and brandishing weapons while yelling in the street.
“He’s at home,” one NYPD detective told the Guardian on Wednesday, asking that his name be withheld because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “But not in any punitive sense. What he did was nothing short of heroic and we are grateful. But it was a very overwhelming incident.”
Nash and his uniformed partner at the NYPD first precinct in lower Manhattan were the first officers on the scene.
They had been attending a routine call at the nearby Stuyvesant high school when a message came in that there had been a vehicle accident outside.
When they hurried into the street, they found that a pickup truck had crashed into a school bus – the denouement of the worst terrorist attack in New York City since hijackers flew passenger planes into the World Trade Center on September 11.
The driver of the truck had already driven at high speed for about a mile down the cycle path that runs down the west side of Manhattan, killing eight and injuring 11, slammed into the bus, and had then exited the vehicle and was waving what appeared to be two guns around.
They turned out to be a paintball gun and a pellet gun, but to Nash and his partner this appeared to be a crazed individual waving deadly weapons.
“There was no discussion, just a reaction,” the detective said.
Nash drew his service gun and reportedly fired nine shots at the suspect from a distance of around 10 to 15ft. The detective who spoke to the Guardian was not able to confirm the number of bullets discharged but said that at least one round hit the suspect.
NYPD officers are trained “to shoot at center mass” of a target, the detective said. Nash hit the suspect, Sayfullo Saipov in the groin or lower abdomen, a tricky feat in the circumstances, against a moving target, the detective said.
Saipov was taken to hospital under guard and has been arrested, but not yet charged.
De Blasio said of Nash: “He was very humble about what he did. But it’s extraordinary and gives people such faith in our police force.”
After an officer discharges his weapon intentionally in a course of a law enforcement confrontation, as opposed to an accidental discharge, a criminal investigation is standard. Nash will be required to give testimony of his version of what occurred on Tuesday. There was no talk of official commendations as early as yesterday, but officers are speculating among themselves that Nash will be honored by the city and promoted.
The detective who spoke to the Guardian said that not every officer is put on leave after firing their weapon, and it is decided on a case-by-case basis.
“It’s one of the most stressful things – you pull the trigger and you are attempting to stop that person and potentially end their life. It’s an overwhelming and serious action to take. A person is very different from a [practice] target,” he said. He said the NYPD’s 36,000 officers fire a weapon intentionally in the line of duty collectively around 30 times a year.
De Blasio said that Nash had undoubtedly saved many lives with his swift action.