A Nassau County police officer was shot and killed near the Cross Island Parkway on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012 (Dan O’Regan/Long Island Press).
A Nassau County police officer was reportedly among two killed in a shootout at a gas station near the Cross Island Parkway in Bellerose Terrace on Tuesday, The Associated Press reports.
This is the second line of duty death for Nassau police in six days. The officer and a suspect were reportedly shot on the parkway just south of the Jamaica Avenue overpass near Belmont Park Racetrack and the New York City line.
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A second suspect reportedly fled the scene. Nassau police and NYPD representatives could not immediately confirm the developments. The AP and other local news outlets cited anonymous sources.
The officer was identified as Arthur Lopez, a member of the elite Emergency Services Unit, a law enforcement source who asked not to be named told the Press.
The parkway was closed in both directions while investigators are on the scene.
The incident comes a day after the funeral for Nassau police Highway Patrolman Joseph Olivieri, who was fatally struck Thursday by an SUV while investigating an alleged drunken-driving crash on the Long Island Expressway.
The latest case marks the fourth Nassau police officer killed in two years.
Highway Patrolman Michael Califano was fatally struck Feb. 4, 2011 while performing a traffic stop on the LIE. Geoffrey Breitkopf, a plainclothes officer with the Bureau of Special Operations, was fatally shot by an MTA officer in a friendly fire incident in Massapequa Park on March 12, 2011.
