Bullet Misses Cop; Kills Ice Cream Freezer
‘Can I get a medium coffee? ...
Please don't move, get the #$&! on the ground’
By Samuel Newhouse
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
DITMAS PARK – It’s a well-known fact that an NYPD officer is never really off-duty.
That became clear a few weeks ago, when a Brooklyn cop getting breakfast for his children was allegedly shot at and drawn into a foot-chase after walking into an armed robbery at a Ditmas Park gas station.
“I was leaving work at 6 a.m.,” Officer Michael Rakebrandt recalled of the incident a few Saturdays ago. “I was going to get donuts for my kids.”
Officer Rakebrandt, of the 71st Precinct, felt his instincts take over when he approached the gas station and saw through the glass doors that a skinny man in a gray hoodie was standing next to the clerk behind the Dunkin’ Donuts counter in the Gulf gas station.
“Right away, I knew something was up,” Rakebrandt told the Eagle. When he got closer, he “saw the first perp at the Dunkin’ Donuts counter standing next to the clerk [and] grabbing money out of the register, so at that point I knew there was a robbery in progress.”
Rakebrandt, who is the brother-in-law of Eagle advertising executive Marc Hibsher, was off-duty and wearing street clothes at the time. He walked right up to the Dunkin’ Donuts counter as if he didn’t know what was happening and started to order a coffee, as the clerk silently motioned with his eyes at the suspect.
“I said, ‘Can I just get a medium?’ drew my gun, and said ‘Please don’t move, get the f--- on the ground,’” Rakebrandt said.
The robber’s eyes “got real wide” and he dropped to the ground shaking nervously, as Rakebrandt came behind the Dunkin’ Donuts counter with his gun drawn on the suspect.
But that’s when he saw a second robber across the room.
This second suspect shouted, “They’re outside!” in what Rakebrandt believes was an attempt to lure him away from the first suspect. But Rakebrandt stayed where he was and tried to watch both men.
The first suspect, he said, was writhing on the ground and pulling his shirt up, shouting that he didn’t have anything, but Rakebrand could see a revolver handle poking out of his belt.
Then, the second suspect leapt over the counter, “looks around, and lets a shot go while I took cover. He goes out the door,” Rakebrandt said.
The suspect fired one bullet, hitting an ice-cream freezer. According to a law enforcement source, it is unclear if the gun was fired intentionally or by accident.
Rakebrandt, who didn’t see where the gunman had fired the bullet, said he didn’t return fire because there were too many other people around and outside the gas station.
A moment later, the first suspect kicked at Rakebrandt, got up and ran out the door “like a bat out of hell.”
Rakebrandt ran after the first suspect for two-and-a-half blocks, but the suspect got away.
“Ninety percent of the time, I’ll catch you, but this kid was moving,” he said.
The entire incident lasted for only three to four minutes, Rakebrandt said.
A week later, two suspects were arrested, and Rakebrandt picked them out of lineup. He says that suspect Corey Phillips, 28, shot at him while fleeing from behind the gas station counter, and that suspect Meliek Saunders, 24, was the robber he first encountered behind the Dunkin’ Donuts counter.
If the case goes to trial, Rakebrandt said he plans to attend.
According to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, the possible indictments of Phillips and Saunders are before the grand jury.
Another law enforcement source said that both suspects will be charged with reckless endangerment for the firing of the gun, in addition to weapons possession and robbery felonies. Phillips and Saunders will likely not be charged with attempted murder.
Asked whether he thought Phillips should be charged with attempted murder, Rakebrandt responded, “At least reckless endangerment … I think he was shooting at me.”
As Rakebrandt remembers the incident, Phillips was allegedly behind the gas station counter shouting “‘They’re outside,’ trying to get me to go past him. … If I’d gone past him he would’ve shot me in the back.”
But it’s all just another day at the job for the Sheepshead Bay resident, who lives with his wife and two young children.
“I was just happy that nobody got hurt, and we got them,” he said. “Nobody gets hurt, it’s a good day.”
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