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Female NYPD Cop 'Assassinated in an Unprovoked Attack' in the Bronx

Officer Miosotis Familia was finishing up her shift when the gunman fired.

A New York police officer was fatally shot early Wednesday by an ex-convict in an attack authorities are calling an “unprovoked assassination,” reported the Associated Press

12-year-NYPD veteran Miosotis Familia, 48, was sitting in a patrol vehicle about to wrap up her shift when she was ambushed by a man with a weapon. Familia was shot in the head by one bullet that was shot through the passenger side window, authorities said.

“PO has been assassinated in an unprovoked attack on cops assigned to keep NYers safe,” Police Commissioner James O’Neill tweeted after her death.

Immediately after Familia’s partner radioed for help, officers caught up to the suspect, 34-year-old Alexander Bonds, about a block away. As they approached Bonds, he pulled out a silver revolver, causing police to shoot and kill him. A bystander was hit in the stomach by a bullet and is in stable condition, police said.

Familia's partner was not injured in the attack. Outside the Bronx hospital where Familia died, Commissioner O’Neill elaborated on the attack.

“It is clear this was an unprovoked attack on police officers who were assigned to keep the people of this great city safe,” O'Neill told reporters at Saint Barnabas Hospital, according to ABC News. “She was sitting in the vehicle and he came up and fired a round into the vehicle. I don’t know if anything else could be more unprovoked than that.”

Familia, 48, had been stationed in a mobile command post, an RV-sized truck used as a communications hub during major events and in high-crime areas as a constant police presence. She had been writing in her memo book, a police log where officers record their shift activity, when Bonds walked up.

Bonds was a convict sentenced to six years in prison on an armed robbery case in Syracuse and had been released on parole in 2013. His supervision was set to end next May.

Surveillance cameras captured Bonds exiting a convenience store near Familia’s unit. He was then seen walking close along the wall and pulling his hoodie up.  Although the video doesn’t capture the shooting, it does show him running from the scene with a gun in his hand, police said.

In the past, Bonds has ranted about the treatment of people at the hands of police officers. In a video posted on Facebook in September, the Bronx man ranted about officers and talked about how hard life was behind bars.

“Don’t think every brother, cousin, uncle you got that get killed in jail is because of a Blood or Crip or Latin King killing them. Nah, police be killing them and saying that an inmate killed them,” he said in the video.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking at the hospital before Familia died, asked that the city keep her in their thoughts.

“She was on duty serving this city, protecting people, doing what she believed in and doing the job she loved,” he said. “And after this shocking and sudden attack, her fellow officers came to her aid immediately."

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