NEW YORK -- An off-duty police detective was shot and critically wounded early Thursday trying to help a woman he saw lying on a street, but authorities said the attack was probably an ambush by robbers.
Detective George Owen, 43, was in stable condition at Kings County Hospital with two bullet wounds in the back.
He was robbed of his service revolver and his wallet, police said.
A police spokesman said Owen, who lives in Nassau County, stopped his car about 2:45 a.m. when he saw the woman in the street in Brooklyn.
As Owen got out of his car and bent over the woman, police said, he heard footsteps behind him.
'He started to turn around to see where the noise was coming from when he heard someone yell, 'Go ahead. Shoot him,'' said Sgt. James Boylan.
Owen, who was hit twice in the back, did not get a description of his assailants.
Boylan said Owen was shot with one of the robbers' guns, not his service revolver.
He staggered back into his compact car after the attack and drove slightly more than a mile to a police stationhouse, where officers transported him to the hospital, Boylan said.
There was no trace of the woman after the shooting, leading police to believe the attack was a robbery setup.
The incident came five days after another off-duty police officer was wounded and a clerk was killed in a gun battle with three bandits at a Brooklyn shoe store.
Owen was the 25th police officer to be wounded this year. Four others have been killed.
Four police officers were shot to death in 1980.
