By Emma Seiwell, Rocco Parascandola and Ellen Moynihan
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — A robber who shot and wounded two New York Police Department sergeants with one bullet after a wild chase on a Lower East Side street has been charged with two counts of attempted murder of a police officer, cops said Friday.
Joshua Dorsett, 22, was being pursued by cops after sticking up several women Thursday afternoon inside a mah-jongg parlor on Canal St. near Eldridge St. when he opened fire on the two sergeants after they caught up to him, police said.
Some neighbors at the Alfred E. Smith Houses, where police said Dorsett lives, were shocked to hear he had been accused of shooting two cops, but others said he’d long seemed troubled.
“Oh my God. I know him,” one woman who did not provide her name told The New York Daily News Friday. “He’s just a very lost kid.”
Another resident, a 29-year-old man, said Dorsett worked as a security guard at the Mall at Bay Plaza in Co-op City in the Bronx.
“He wouldn’t do that if he were in the right state of mind. That’s not him.”
Dorsett is a member of the Up the Hill gang, whose members were responsible for the execution-style murders of a man and woman from the Lower East Side in May 2022, police said.
The grisly double slaying of childhood friends Nikki Huang, 23, and Jesse Parrilla, 22, rocked lower Manhattan. Their badly burned bodies were found in a torched car on Shore Road near the Split Rock Golf Course in Pelham Bay. Dorsett was not charged with any crimes connected to the murders.
Dorsett was indicted in 2022 for selling crack six times to an undercover officer between March and June, according to court documents filed by the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.
The crack buys took place at various locations on the Lower East Side, and Dorsett pleaded guilty to criminal sale of a controlled substance. He received a sentence of three years probation in May, according to a spokesperson from the prosecutor’s office.
Before robbing the mah-jongg parlor, Dorsett had met earlier in the day with his probation officer, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
A friend of Dorsett’s who lives at the Smith Houses told the Daily News he had seen the suspect at Manhattan Criminal Court hours before the chaos unfolded.
“I got to court at like 10:20 (at) 100 Centre St. He was walking out leaving while I’m walking inside. He shook my hand. I was like ‘How you doing bro? How’s everything?’ He was like, ‘I’m all right. Leaving court.’ He didn’t even look like he was off or anything. He looked fine. That’s crazy.
“He’s a kind-hearted person,” said the friend, 29. “There’s times when I’ve been out here, broke, nothing to eat, and he’ll get me a meal for the night. He was a good friend.”
A 911 call came in at 4:15 p.m. about the robbery at 91 Canal St., where Dorsett had robbed women of their purses at the parlor, Kenny said at a news briefing at Bellevue Hospital Thursday night.
Video shows Dorsett pulling a gun on the women and announcing a robbery, Kenny added.
Officers arriving to the mah-jongg parlor were told Dorsett fled north toward Delancey St. Minutes later, cops from 5th and 7th Precincts spotted the suspect in front of 167 Eldridge St.
Sgt. Carl Johnson, 43, of the 5th Precinct and Sgt. Christopher Leap, 34, of the 7th Precinct caught up to the suspect and were shot trying to subdue him, police and witnesses said.
Kenny said bodycam video showed the moment Dorsett opened fire.
“He begins to pull the firearm out of his front pants pocket. The officers instruct him, ‘Let me see your hands’. A struggle begins for the firearm and then you hear the gunshot go off.
“One bullet hit both cops,” Kenny said at the briefing.
Freddy Hernandez, who was standing at the intersection when the shooting occurred, said he saw the scene unfold.
“A cop was running behind (the gunman) all by himself. An undercover car was also chasing him,” Hernandez told the Daily News Thursday. “They did a U-turn. He was dodging them between cars. They boxed him in like football.”
“They grabbed him and threw him on the hood of the car. It was a taxi parked on the street. Then boom — gunfire,” Hernandez added.
Johnson was struck in the groin and Leap suffered a graze wound. Both officers were taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.
Leap, who has served 11 years on the force, was released Thursday night to applause from fellow officers arrayed outside the hospital entrance, where Commissioner Edward Caban waited to shake hands with the wounded officer.
Johnson, a 16-year-veteran of the force, was expected to be released Saturday, cops said.
Dorsett was also charged with criminal possession of a weapon and robbery, police said Friday.
Officers recovered a loaded .45 pistol and cash from the robbery suspect following his arrest, Kenny said.
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