Brooklyn, NY – A suspect is in custody in connection with a fire that left two police officers critically injured in Coney Island on Sunday. Police were questioning a suspect on Sunday night, but no charges had been filed.
As WCBS 880′s Jim Smith reported, the fire broke out around 12:30 p.m. on the 13th floor of a residential high-rise on Surf Avenue, across from MCU Park, the Brooklyn Cyclones’ minor league baseball stadium. The fire was extinguished less than an hour later, the FDNY said.
The officers – a man and a woman, both in their 30s – were overcome by smoke in an elevator while responding to the fire, police told 1010 WINS. Both were found unconscious.
Rosa Rodriguez, 36, was taken to Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dennis Guerra, 38, was taken to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. Rodriguez is a mother of four who lives in Far Rockaway. Guerra also has four children, his father is a retired NYPD detective.
Witnesses said that when the officers ran inside, smoke was billowing out of the building.
“Two cops had to go in an ambulance because they ran in when they saw what happened,” a woman named Evelyn, who declined to give her last name, told 1010 WINS.
The officers were found unconscious and unresponsive on the floor of a 13th floor hallway.
“Fire Department personnel arrived at the building where they made their way up to the thirteenth floor where they located both officers unconscious and unresponsive on the hallway floor,” Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said.
Read more at CBS LOCAL.
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