New York City Correction Officer Fatally Shot in Her Car in Brooklyn

A New York City correction officer was fatally shot in her car in the Bergen Beach section of Brooklyn, the police said on Monday.

The officer, Anastacia Bryan, 25, was making a phone call outside her mother’s home near the intersection of East 73rd Street and Avenue L around 9:15 p.m. when a man who had been waiting in a car nearby approached her, Robert K. Boyce, the Police Department’s chief of detectives, said at a news conference.

The man fired five bullets at the car, two of which hit Ms Bryan in the head and body, and then got back into his car and drove off, Chief Boyce said. Ms Bryan was declared dead when the police arrived at the scene, Chief Boyce said.

Ms Bryan was a newly assigned officer who had worked at the city’s Rikers Island jail complex for about a month, Chief Boyce said.

“On behalf of all New Yorkers, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones of Anastacia Bryan — a rising member of New York City’s Department of Correction who was senselessly murdered yesterday in Brooklyn,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “The N.Y.P.D. is working aggressively to find the person responsible for this heinous act.”

No arrests had been made in the case as of Monday afternoon.

Elias Husamudeen, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, also issued a statement.

“Tonight our correction family and the entire City of New York is shocked and grieving the horrific murder of one of the youngest members of New York City’s Boldest, who was shot and killed by an unknown assailant while sitting in her car in Brooklyn,” he said in the statement.

Relatives and colleagues of Ms Bryan were seen entering the family’s home on East 73rd Street throughout the day on Monday. All declined to comment.

Neighbours said Ms Bryan’s family had moved into the two-family house just two months ago. None said they knew Ms Bryan.

Carolle Letang, 51, said that in the 15 years she had lived on the block, she had never seen anything like the shooting.

“This is the quietest place I’ve ever lived in New York,” said Ms Letang, who lives across from where the shooting occurred. She said that she was asleep when the gunshots rang out but that her daughter had called her from outside to tell her about the shooting.

“My daughter was crying,” Ms Letang said on Monday. “She asked me, ‘When are we moving out of here?’ This was a shock to everyone in the community.”

The shooting comes about a week after a state correction officer and his wife were shot in a home invasion in Queens. No arrest has been made in that shooting, and the police said they did not believe the episodes were connected.