Three New York City police officers shot

• Tweet

NEW YORK, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Three New York Police Department officers were shot in two separate incidents within an hour of each other, the police commissioner announced.

Off-duty officer Juan Pichardo, 34, was shot in the leg Thursday evening as he stopped a robbery at a used-car dealership owned by his family in The Bronx. Transit Police officers Michael Levay, 27, and Lukasz Kozicki, 32, were shot later in the evening by an assailant they had spotted walking between subway cars in Brooklyn, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

The three wounded officers are expected to survive, but the unidentified subway gunman, who had a lengthy prior arrest record, was shot to death by return fire, the New York Post reported Friday.

"Sometimes the good guys get shot, and sometimes they are killed. Tonight, thank God, three New York City police officers, who acted heroically, are going to make it," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday night.