Police Lt. Brian Murphy
DEVASTATION: A woman is consoled at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., where a gunman killed six and wounded three, including Police Lt. Brian Murphy (right), who was shot while tending to victims.
There was no taking the Brooklyn out of this gutsy hero.
The tough-as-nails cop who was struck by up to nine bullets while aiding shooting victims at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin is a Brooklyn-born ex-Marine known for his bravery, his proud pop told The Post yesterday.
“That is him, believe me. He was a Marine. He goes by training. He was always a straight shooter, a very impressive kid,” retired New York City sanitation worker James Murphy, 78, said of his son, Oak Creek Police Lt. Brian Murphy.
“He’s a guy who would do you a favor if he knew you for 10 minutes,” the dad added of Brian, who fellow cops said has kept his Brooklyn accent and attitude even after two decades in the Badger State.
Brian Murphy, 51, had stopped to help victims of Sunday’s shooting rampage when racist madman Wade Michael Page shot him eight or nine times with a 9mm semiautomatic at close range.
The gravely wounded Murphy — who did tours in India and Afghanistan — bravely waved other cops off as they came to help him, telling them to go into the temple to aid others, his dad said.
“He took nine bullets, and he was still telling [fellow cops] what to do. He is a hero,” the elder Murphy said during an interview at his home on East Fifth Street in Kensington, Brooklyn.
“If he had the opportunity, he would have taken [the shooter] right between the eyes!”
The dad said his son had a typical Brooklyn boyhood in Park Slope, where the family had lived, playing pickup baseball and football with pals and his kid brother, Terrence, now 46 and a retired NYPD cop.
Terrence and Brian’s brother-in-law, New York City Fire Marshal Kevin Burns, rushed to Froedtert Hospital in Wisconsin to be by Brian’s side.
The dad teared up as he recalled Terrence telling him that one bullet had been taken out of Brian’s neck but that another remained, since doctors were afraid to remove it because of its location.
“His voice box is messed up,” James Murphy said. “[Terrence] said he could whisper. It’s in God’s hands right now.”
In a statement released by the hospital, Terrence Murphy said, “As we stand by Brian and pray for his recovery, we extend condolences to the families who lost their lives in this tragic incident.”
Brian Murphy joined the Marines after high school, his dad said, and had moved to Wisconsin to be near his daughter from his first marriage.
Brian also has two stepkids, Simon, 8, and Jane, 6, with his second wife, Ann, a college teacher.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly went to the Sikh Cultural Society in Queens as extra cops patrolled Sikh sites here.
But “there have been no threats made against the Sikh community here,” Bloomberg insisted.
He added bitterly, “Just two weeks after tragedy in Aurora, [Colo.], we’ve seen another mass shooting. And still, the two presidential candidates have not given the American public a plan to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.”
Additional reporting by Emily Bradley in Oak Creek, Wis., and Kate Kowsh in New York