Shootings target 3 NY police officers, amid calls for tougher gun laws

Three New York City police officers have been shot in separate encounters, amid growing calls for stricter gun laws in the United States.

The first shooting took place on a subway train late Thursday at about 7:30 p.m. local time (0030 GMT) when two officers in plain clothes were shot by a man walking between train cars, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a statement.

The man opened fire on the officers identified as Michael Levay, 27, and Lukasz Kozicki, 32, aboard the train that was heading toward Manhattan from Brooklyn after he was asked to show some identification.

The gunman was killed by Levay, who received a shot in the lower back that was protected by his bulletproof vest.

Kozicki was shot once in each of his upper thighs and in the groin.

In an earlier incident on Thursday, an off-duty police officer was struck in his right thigh and sustained a bullet wound when he tried to stop an attempted armed robbery at his family’s car dealership in the Bronx.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Police Department chief Cathy Lanier has expressed support for tougher gun laws in the US.

“High capacity magazines and automatic rifles — those are two things we ought to be thinking about in terms of reducing the risk (of homicide) and reducing harm,” Lanier stated.

There have been hot debates in the United States on harsher gun laws over the past few weeks.

On December 14, 2012, twenty children and six adults were fatally shot by 20-year-old Adam Lanza – who later killed himself – at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Lanza had killed his mother earlier in the day.

The United States experienced several mass killings in 2012, including the Colorado cinema shooting in July, which left a dozen people dead and nearly 60 others injured.