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Update:
The two officers who were shot were 6 and 7 years’ long veterans of NYPD. The hospital report has been amended for now, to one officer shot in lower back and arm and in critical condition. One officer was shot in the chest and arm and is reported in stable condition.

Shortly after the shooting, investigators were notified that a man had arrived at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center with a gunshot wound to his back, Mr. Bratton said. He said that the police were investigating whether he had any connection to the shooting.

Thus far, the story unfolds this way: The officers were shot as they approached two possible suspects in a grocery store robbery outside a nearby Chinese restaurant on Tiebout Avenue near East 184th Street. One of the suspects walked into the restaurant and officers approached the other man on the street. Suspect in restaurant ran out and fired at the officers. Officers returned fire. Suspects fled on foot, then carjacked a white Camaro [as reported by Police Commissioner William J. Bratton].

Robert K. Boyce, the chief of detectives said the two suspects were described as Hispanic men, 25 to 30 years old. One man has a close cropped beard, and one may be wounded. The suspect’s gun was a Ruger Blackhawk with a 7.5-inch barrel. Chief Boyce said the officers had their shields out, and that the gunman knew they were police officers when he fired.

Tonight, Bill De Blasio, a mayor who may be damned if he does, damned if he doesnt because of his previous strong one-sided personal negative sense of all of nypd, made a statement that some took as a further not so veiled scold about police officers whom he has accused of ‘disrespecting’ him.

Because De Blasio appears to have helped, by his personal rhetoric, a hostile, pernicious environment by some toward an entire police force in nyc in the last many months–

and who has made officer’s free speech rights to show resistance to his blanket anti-police force rhetoric a ‘disrespect to himself,’ and then what he called three days later by what some say is usurping the families’ rights to speak for themselves: a ‘disrespect’ of the families. [Some officers from out of state, some retired, and some on force- turning their backs on his ‘image’ outside the funeral homes, when his video image came on the ‘big screen’ outdoors–].

So tonight the mayor made what some consider a grandstanding overstatement of the dangers faced by NYPD everyday, but apparently unfamiliar to the mayor who called out the wounded officers as extraordinarily heroic. However, most at NYPD would say, as was proven by NYPDd and NYFD on 9-11, that NYPD and NYFD of the New York City community FOREVER run TOWARD danger EVERY DAY. It is not extraordinary. It is not ‘above and beyond the call’. That is their job. Their daily job. Their commitment. That is what any officer would do.

But De Blasio seemed to indicate to the media gathered around him, that the dailiness of such dedication in the midst of abject danger is somehow new to him. And his remarks seem like a Daffy and Dandy comparison to some: see how good x and y officers are, as compared to those others who ”disrespect’ me,’ et al.

Thus De Blasio praised the officers who were wounded on Monday night for quickly moving into action. ““These officers did something that was extraordinarily brave this evening,” Mr. de Blasio told reporters at the hospital around 2:30 a.m. He said they were coming off their shift when the robbery call came in, but “went back out in search of these criminals.”

“This is absolutely a case of officers going above and beyond the call to protect their fellow New Yorkers,” Mr. de Blasio said, adding: “This is another indicator of the dangers that our officers face in the line of duty. We depend on them to keep this whole city safe.”

Just a .02, instead of de Blasio, it appears many more New Yorkers may warm to the heartfelt Ritchie Torres, the city councilman who represents the neighborhood in which the officers were shot. Councilman Torres released a statement asking New Yorkers to please keep the officers and their families in their prayers. “Tonight’s shooting underscores, in the most painfully human terms, the extraordinary risk that officers take in keeping our neighborhoods safe from violent crime,” Mr. Torres said. “The two criminals responsible for the shootings deserve no mercy at all: They should be swiftly apprehended and prosecuted aggressively to the fullest extent of the law.”

Balanced, clear, concise and in context.

Older First Report: We have to wait for ‘first reports’ to be clarified, but this is what appears factual at the moment:

NYPD reported two police officers shot Monday night in the midst of attempting to pull a car over.

One officer was shot in the back, and another officer was shot in the arm, police officials said.

A hunt is underway for at least two assailants, said Deputy Chief Kim Y. Royster, a Police Department spokeswoman. The officers were working as part of an anti-crime detail in a particular part of 46th Precinct. Officers were thought to be in plainclothes while in the midst of investigating a robbery when the shooting began.

The shootings occurred around 10:30 p.m. near East 184th Street and Tiebout Avenue, near the Grand Concourse and south of Fordham University, the police said.

William J. Bratton, the police commissioner, entered the emergency room shortly after 11:30 p.m…. The trauma bay in the emergency room was clogged with police officers.

A news conference was expected at St. Barnabas Hospital, where the officers were taken, Ms. Royster said.

“At one point, the assailants’ car crashed,” the official said. At least one person got out of car “and fired at the cops.”