An off-duty rookie cop was killed in East Harlem last night — in a hail of bullets fired by a fellow officer in a tragic case of mistaken identity, authorities said.
Officer Omar Edwards, 25, married and the father of two small children, was confronting a suspect who was trying to break into his car at about 10:30 p.m., Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
Edwards had gotten off duty from PSA 5 early, at 10 p.m. — his scheduled quit time was 2:30 a.m. — and called 911 when he saw Miguel Santiago, who has five prior arrests for drugs, assault and robbery, breaking into his car at 125th Street and Second Avenue, police sources said.
Edwards had pulled his gun on Santiago as they confronted one another on the misty, rain-drenched streets.
At that moment, a sergeant and two officers from the 25th Precinct anti-crime unit rolled up, Kelly said.
A 4½-year veteran jumped out of the car and fired off six shots — two of which struck Edwards, who wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest because he was off duty, Kelly said.
The officer who fired the gun is white; Edwards was black.
Kelly said investigators would try to determine if that played a role in the friendly-fire tragedy.
Edwards, who lived in Brooklyn, died at 11:21 p.m. at Harlem Hospital.
“This is a sad day for the city and for the New York Police Department,” Mayor Bloomberg said at a news conference early this morning.
Kelly added, “I hope the prayers of all New Yorkers are with Police Officer Edwards and his family.”
The violence jolted people who happened to be nearby.
“He wasn’t moving,” said Oni Rodriguez, 23. “He was wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt with lots of blood. They put him on a stretcher.”
Malik Lane, 20, who lives in a nearby shelter, heard the blast of gunfire as far away as 125th and Lexington Avenue.
His friend Christian Becances, 19, said he thought he heard multiple gun pops.
“I said to myself, ‘Where’s that coming from?’ ” Becances said.
“It was very chaotic. I heard a lot of police officers. They were hugging each other, and when I asked a cop what happened he said, ‘Leave me alone.’ ”
The shooting eerily recalled an August 1994 confrontation in which an off-duty officer mistook a plainclothes cop for a gunman,
Officer Peter DelDebbio, who is white, was searching for two armed teens on a Midtown subway station when he opened fire, hitting another cop, Desmond Robinson, who is black, five times. Robinson survived and forgave the shooter.
Additional reporting by Murray Weiss and CJ Sullivan