A New York City police officer responding to a call about domestic violence was shot in the back Thursday night, but his vest stopped the bullet and he left a Brooklyn hospital on Friday, police officials said.
The officer, who was not identified, was the third in the past three weeks to be shot while answering a domestic violence call, New York police officials noted.
Last month, two officers suffered injuries that were not life-threatening when a gunman shot them in Springfield Gardens, Queens. The gunman was killed.
The confrontation Thursday night could have yielded a more tragic outcome, had it not been for the officer’s vest, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference early Friday.
“They felt this was a Christmas miracle,” Mr. de Blasio said, referring to the officer’s parents, “that their son is alive and well.”
The officer, who is 27 and has been with the department for more than two years, “is in a little pain but he is in extremely good spirits,” Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea said at the news conference at Kings County Hospital Center, where the officer, who was not identified, was being treated.
A 20-year-old man suspected of firing the shot was chased several blocks by police officers until he dropped his gun and was taken into custody, Commissioner Shea said.
The episode began as a call for help about domestic violence. Shortly before 9 p.m., a woman made at least two calls to 911, saying her daughter’s boyfriend was on his way to their Crown Heights apartment and was going to shoot them, officials said.
“The urgency of the voice cannot be understated,” Commissioner Shea said.
Moments after the police arrived at their third-floor apartment in a private residence, the boyfriend arrived, the commissioner said.
Then, according to footage from the officers’ body cameras, “you see the girlfriend point out, and next thing you hear are shots being fired,” Commissioner Shea said.
The 27-year-old officer was struck in the back, the commissioner said, but the bullet did not penetrate the officer’s bulletproof vest. Two other officers fired at least seven shots at the man but did not strike him, Commissioner Shea said.
The man ran off, but an officer caught up about two blocks later. That officer repeatedly yelled at the man to drop the gun, the commissioner said.
“Eventually, the perpetrator puts the gun down on the sidewalk, lays down, and he’s taken into custody without any further violence,” Commissioner Shea said, noting that the entire chase and confrontation had been captured by the officer’s body camera.
The police identified the man who was arrested in the shooting as William Moss of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Mr. Moss was being charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment, criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon, the police said.
At the news conference in Brooklyn early Friday, Patrick Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, said the shooting was part of a broader pattern of violence against law enforcement officers.
“We have to start asking the question: Why is this happening?” Mr. Lynch said.
Joseph Goldstein contributed reporting.