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State government buildings across New York are flying flags at half-staff on Thursday in honor of a slain police officer.

ABC News reported that a gunman fatally shot a Black female New York City police officer early Wednesday in an “unprovoked attack.” Her friends and colleagues are mourning the loss.

The accused gunman fired a single round at Officer Miosotis Familia, 48, while she was sitting with her partner in a marked police command vehicle in the Bronx. Familia, a mother of three and a 12-year veteran assigned to the city’s 46th Precinct anti-crime unit, was shot in the head and pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital at 3:37 a.m. on Wednesday, ABC reported.

New York City Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said Familia’s partner, who was not injured, used the vehicle radio to call for help. Other officers chased after and confronted the suspect who brandished a gun before cops shot and killed him. The suspect was later identified as Alexander Bonds, 34, of New York City.

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 said at a press conference on Wednesday. “She was sitting in the vehicle, and he came up and fired a round into the vehicle [on the passenger’s side.] I don’t know if anything else could be more unprovoked than that.”

A .38 caliber revolver recovered from the crime scene was stolen in West Virginia in 2013, a police sources told ABC.

A second person, who police believe was an innocent bystander, was also hit by a bullet and hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.

Familia, who police believe may not have seen the suspect approaching the vehicle, was remembered as a hero. “For nearly 12 years, Officer Familia did what each of you also swore an oath to do every day, on every tour: fight crime and disorder, and improve people’s lives,” O’Neill said.

The police commissioner also referred to her death as a “direct attack on police officers assigned to safeguard the people of New York City” and said she was “murdered for her uniform and for the responsibility she embraced.”

Familia’s neighbor said the mom of a 20-year-old daughter and 12-year-old twins took care of her aging mother, reports the New York Daily News.

She was a lovely, dear woman,” the neighbor added.

SOURCE: ABC News, New York Daily News

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Murder Charge For NYPD Cop Who Killed Deborah Danner

Friends & Colleagues Honor Slain Black Female NYPD Officer  was originally published on newsone.com