The veteran Brooklyn detective who took a bullet during a standoff with an armed nut last week was greeted with a sweet hug from NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch as he was wheeled out of the hospital Tuesday.
Det. Matthew Gale, a 15-year veteran of the department’s elite Emergency Service Unit, was escorted out of the Kings County Hospital Center while dozens of members of New York’s Finest saluted and clapped, while bagpipes played.
Gale, sitting up in a stretcher and decked out in an NYPD cap and T-shirt with a white blanket over his legs, smiled and waved at onlookers in blue.
Moments before he was lifted inside an awaiting department vehicle, Tisch stood by his side and shook his hand before embracing him.
Gale was part of the specialized crew that responded to a two-story brownstone on Kosciusko Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant Friday morning after a maniac fired off multiple rounds during an apparent feud with an elderly couple who lived upstairs, cops said.
When the first-responding cops found the suspect, Lamin Simmons, 48, still armed with a gun, they were forced to retreat outside, police said.
They narrowly avoided being pelted as Simmons – who barricaded himself in the building for hours – hurled a microwave and kitchenware into the backyard.
The ESU team, including Gale, soon took over – entering the home, where they found a still-armed Simmons at the top of the stairs, on the same floor as the senior citizens, authorities said.
Simmons refused to drop the weapon, despite multiple commands, before he opened fire, hitting Gale in the leg, police said.
The detective suffered a tibial fracture on his left leg and received treatment at the hospital, authorities said.
Four officers returned fire, hitting Simmons, where he was rushed to another local hospital and pronounced dead, cops said.
“What happened this morning is a reminder that the men and women of the NYPD routinely place themselves between danger and the people they serve,” Tisch said Friday.
“They enter situations that are uncertain, volatile, and often life-threatening,” she said. “This morning, Detective Gale put his life on the line doing exactly that.”
Outside the hospital Tuesday, Detectives’ Endowment Association president Scott Munro described cops like Gale as “true heroes” who “fight the fight every day.”
Meanwhile, he cautioned that something needs to be done to prevent “emotionally disturbed people” like the suspect from putting cops and everyday New Yorkers in danger.
“We have to do something about that,” he said. “We have a lot of people, not just police officers, detectives getting hurt. We have civilians out there. We’re going to have to work on that moving forward.”