Two Plainclothes Officers Are Shot in the Bronx

Two plainclothes New York City police officers were shot in the Bronx on Monday night while they were investigating an armed robbery at a grocery store, the police said.

One officer, Andrew Dossi, 30, was shot in the lower back and arm, and was in critical but stable condition early Tuesday, the police said. The other officer, Aliro Pellerano, 38, was shot in the chest and arm; he was in stable condition.

At a news conference at St. Barnabas Hospital early Tuesday, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said the police were searching for two suspects. Later, around 4:45 a.m., the police released a video showing the suspect who they said fired at the officers.

After the shootings on Monday night, Deputy Chief Kim Y. Royster made it clear that the officers had not been initially targeted by the gunman — as occurred in the Dec. 20 fatal shooting of two officers in their patrol car in Brooklyn — but were instead investigating a robbery when the shooting began.

The officers were shot around 10:30 p.m. when they approached two possible suspects in the grocery store robbery outside a nearby Chinese restaurant on Tiebout Avenue near East 184th Street. One of the suspects then walked into the restaurant; as the officers approached the other man on the street, the suspect in the restaurant ran out and fired at the officers, Mr. Bratton said. The officers returned fire, and the suspects fled on foot before carjacking a white Camaro that had two women inside, he said.

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