A gunpoint carjacking near the corner of Avenue O and East 15th Street in Midwood ended with an NYPD officer firing a single shot at a vehicle barreling toward him, though the car was not struck. Two people were arrested in connection with the incident, which unfolded as officers responded to reports of an armed vehicle theft in the residential Brooklyn neighborhood.
According to ABC7 New York, the officer responded to a gunpoint carjacking when the suspects' vehicle traveled directly toward him. The outlet reports the officer fired one shot toward the car, which was not hit, and that no other details had been released at the time of publication.
The intersection sits within the NYPD's 70th Precinct. The 61st Precinct covers Midwood, Sheepshead Bay, Homecrest, Kings Highway, and Manhattan Beach and is headquartered on Coney Island Avenue, according to the New York City Police Department. The command recorded 6,141 total reported major crimes, 2,709 arrests, and 5 shooting incidents across its jurisdiction in 2025, per NYPD 61st Precinct data, figures that suggest shootings remain relatively rare compared with higher-volume Brooklyn commands.
What NYPD Policy Says About Firing at Moving Cars
Any time an NYPD officer discharges a firearm during a confrontation, department procedure requires review from multiple angles. Under Patrol Guide Procedure No. 221-01, officers are strictly prohibited from discharging firearms at or from a moving vehicle unless deadly physical force is being used against the officer or another person by means other than the vehicle itself, per the New York City Police Department's own guidance. NYPD policy holds that an oncoming vehicle alone generally does not justify deadly force unless the people inside present an independent deadly threat, such as a firearm.
That restriction dates back to 1972, when the NYPD became one of the first major American police departments to impose a near-total ban on firing at moving cars, a policy shift that produced an immediate and sustained drop in police-involved shootings, according to the Police Executive Research Forum. National law enforcement researchers have long recommended the approach because striking a driver can send an unguided vehicle careening into bystanders.
Every adversarial firearm discharge by an officer is formally investigated by the department's Force Investigation Division, which conducts forensic, ballistic, and body-worn camera analysis of split-second shoot-or-don't-shoot decisions regardless of whether any bullets struck a target, the NYPD says. Separately, the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau and the local district attorney's office run parallel administrative and potential criminal reviews of an officer's actions whenever a weapon is fired during a suspect confrontation, according to the New York State Office of the Attorney General.
Penalties the Officer and Suspects Could Face
Should investigators determine the officer violated firing restrictions, the NYPD's Disciplinary System Penalty Guidelines, updated in 2024, could bear on any internal penalty, though the specific penalty for this alleged violation is not established here. It remains to be seen whether the Force Investigation Division will find that the suspects displayed a weapon during the vehicular confrontation or whether the officer faces internal review over the discharge.
On the suspects' side, New York Penal Law § 160.15 classifies forcibly stealing a motor vehicle while armed with or displaying what appears to be a firearm as Robbery in the First Degree, a Class B violent felony, according to the New York State Senate. Whether prosecutors ultimately file that charge against the two people arrested in Brooklyn Criminal Court remains to be seen.
Part of a Wider Pattern of Brooklyn Carjackings
The Midwood incident lands amid other vehicle thefts in Brooklyn this year. Hoodline has reported on a February 2026 incident in Canarsie in which three masked men armed with a knife and gun carjacked a taxi near Avenue M and East 180th Street. That episode has kept violent vehicle theft attempts involving handguns under heightened police surveillance across the borough.
State lawmakers have also taken notice of the broader tension between officer safety and vehicle-shooting restrictions. Legislation known as DJ's Law would direct the state's Municipal Police Training Council to establish statewide written policies and recurring training specifically governing officer firearm discharges at moving vehicles, according to the New York State Assembly. The bill's materials discuss the death of Danroy Henry and similar incidents.
No further details on the officer's identity, the suspects' names, or formal charges had been released at the time of the ABC7 report. Hoodline will continue to follow the case as the Force Investigation Division review and any prosecution move forward.
