Investigators at the scene of Sunday’s shooting in Queens. (William C. Lopez)
Joseph Koch (NYPD)
A 10-year-old boy whose mother was saved by hero cop Joseph Koch last night begged to visit the wounded officer in the hospital to thank him, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said today.
Jacob Rodriguez “wanted to meet Police Officer Koch, so I brought him in,” Kelly said.
“Thanks for doing that,” the boy said, according to Kelly.
“Any time,” replied Koch, a seven-year NYPD veteran.
Koch, a father of three and domestic violence officer assigned to the 101st Precinct in Queens, had been at a Father’s Day barbeque at his fiancee’s home in Jamaica at 10 p.m. when he heard the boy screaming, “He’s killing my mother!”
Kelly said the “very brave” boy had tried to intervene when his mother was attacked by her ex-boyfriend Jose Brenazard, 40. The boy had been struck hard enough under the eye to leave a bruise, her said.
Koch went to the victim’s house a block away with his gun. Brenazard “charges the officer (and) a struggle ensures,” Kelly said.
Several shots were fired and Koch was seriously wounded in the hand, endangering his fingers. “It went in the top of his left hand and came out the side, so that’s a concern of the doctors,” the commissioner said.
Koch’s soon-to-be father-in-law, Wilfredo Medina, called Koch “a great man, a great person.”
“I saw my son-in-law bleeding, pointing at the guy, telling him not to move. From y point of view, he’s a hero. He may have saved a life,” Medina, 60, said.
Koch, the wounded perpetrator and the woman victim, who suffered a seven-inch gash, were treated at Jamaica Hospital.
Kelly said cops had been called to the home at 144-22 South Road six times before because of domestic violence reports.
Koch, based in the 101st Precinct in Far Rockaway, has previously been honored as that station house’s Officer of the Month, according to the Rockaway Wave.
At the hospital, he was reunited with the boy whose mom he rescued, according to sources.
“The officer is in a lot of pain, but he’s in relative good spirits,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said at the hospital this morning.