Ambushed officer dies

Tragic end after B’klyn rob shooting

The off-duty NYPD cop who was shot during a botched robbery attempt in Brooklyn over the weekend was declared dead on Tuesday.

Officer Adeed Fayaz, 26, a fiveyear department veteran and married father of two, had been on life support at Brookdale Hospital since the cowardly attack in East New York on Saturday evening.

He was pronounced dead at 3:25 p.m., with flags later seen flying at half-staff at his 66th Precinct station house in Borough Park.

NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell and both rank-and-file and brass from the department were at the hospital throughout the day, comforting grieving relatives, including several who flew in from Pakistan.

“What can you say about a police officer. It’s someone who dedicated their life to serve and protect,” said retired cop Ahmed Nasser, who knew Fayaz from the NYPD Muslim Officer’s Society. “To me, it’s a family. It doesn’t matter if I know them. A cop is a family.”

Hundreds of cops lined the streets outside the hospital as Fayaz’s body was led into the back of an ambulance destined for the city Medical Examiner’s Office shortly before 7 p.m. His grieving relatives held onto Fayaz’s two young sons during the somber scene.

Fayaz was shot once in the head after he and his brother-in-law responded to a Facebook Marketplace ad for a Honda Pilot and the two were ambushed by an armed would-be robber. The pair had $24,000 in cash on them at the time, police sources said.

Lured to his death

The gunman, identified by police on Tuesday as Randy “Popper” Jones, 38, of Harlem, was charged with murder and robbery in the attack, cops said.

“He fled, but he could not evade our reach,” Commissioner Sewell said during a press briefing Tuesday morning. “In less than 46 hours, he was handcuffed by an NYPD detective assigned to the US Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force.

“The victim, in this case, is an NYPD officer,” Sewell added. “But we will relentlessly pursue anyone who carries in firearms or shoots someone in this city.”

Jones allegedly lured Fayaz and his relative down a dark alley on Ruby Street, pulled a gun and demanded money — opening fire “almost immediately.”

The cop was struck once in his left temple, with the bullet exiting the back of his skull, and went down. His brother-in-law then pulled the gun from the cop’s holster and returned fire as the shooter fled.

Jones fled and cops tracked him down to a Rockland County hotel, where they took him into custody on Monday using Fayaz’s handcuffs.