A New York police officer whose father was killed in the line of duty nearly 30 years ago fired an errant shot on Saturday during a drug raid in the Bronx and wounded a suspect’s 76-year-old father, the authorities said.

The officer, Andrew McCormack, 37, and other Emergency Service officers accompanied narcotics officers to 1184 Evergreen Avenue about 7 a.m. to execute a warrant for the arrest of Alberto Colon, 41, the police said.

They had forced open the door of Apartment 4D when Officer McCormack’s weapon discharged one shot, said a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. The round struck Jose Colon, Alberto Colon’s father, in the abdomen, and he was taken to Jacobi Medical Center, the authorities said. The wounded man was expected to survive.

“We believe he’s accidentally struck,” the official said. “At this point, it appears to be an accidental discharge.”

Alberto Colon, who the authorities said had been arrested more than a dozen times, including on narcotics charges, was taken into custody. In his apartment, in a neighborhood wedged between the Bruckner and Sheridan Expressways, detectives found a small amount of heroin that had been packaged for sale, the official said.

Saturday’s events will be analyzed by the Police Department’s Firearms Discharge Review Board to determine if they fit within the guidelines for the use of deadly physical force, the official said. The office of the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, will also “review the facts and circumstances” of the case, said Steven Reed, a spokesman for the office.

Andrew McCormack has earned at least five medals since joining the force in 1998, and like his father, Officer Joseph P. McCormack, became part of the elite Emergency Service Unit.

The younger officer was 10 years old when a mentally disturbed man shot his father, in September 1983. The man, Salvatore Ferrara, 33, fired a shotgun blast that ricocheted off a tree, pierced a fold in the elder McCormack’s bullet-resistant vest and struck him in the heart.

Joseph McCormack was 40 and married with three children when he died.

He had responded with colleagues to 1641 Mulford Avenue, in Pelham Bay, around 11:25 a.m., after a report that a man with a history of mental illness had barricaded himself inside.

Officers surrounded the house, but Mr. Ferrara held them off for more than three hours, the police said. During the standoff, officers were able to speak with Mr. Ferrara periodically to try to get him to surrender peacefully. But around 2:50 p.m., Mr. Ferrara stepped out onto a porch behind the two-family house and fired the shotgun blast that hit Officer McCormack, who had been standing behind a tree in an adjoining yard.

The blast was said to have passed through the seams of the officer’s bullet-resistant vest and entered his chest. As he fell, Officer McCormack fired a shot, but the shot went wild, the police said.

(Source: NY Times)