Shootout and Chase Near Baruch Houses on the Lower East Side

For forty minutes earlier this morning, a police helicopter buzzed around the Lower East Side, reportedly projecting a spotlight around the vicinity of Baruch Houses. One Boogie reader walking her dog at the time filed the following:

From my apartment I could hear a VERY loud helicopter so I looked out the window.  About one-half hour prior to initially hearing the copter,  I did hear what sounded like many gun shots.

What she heard was a gun battle and chase that erupted on Columbia Street near the Baruch Houses between cops and one Luis Martinez. 7Online reports that police officers Thomas Richards and Thomas Dunne were questioning the 25-year-old when “the suspect muttered something indecipherable, turned toward Richards and fired numerous times.”

Like a scene from the movies, the bullet allegedly deflected off an ammo clip on Richards’ gun belt, and the officers chased Martinez down Columbia Street, onto Rivington and over to Baruch. There the suspect was hit in the leg, and staggered into a sixth floor apartment where he was arrested. It is unknown at the moment why police were questioning the suspect in the first.