Metro

Man charged in attack that knocked out rookie cop’s teeth

A man with a long history of targeting women and fighting police was charged in the attack that left a rookie cop with several missing and broken teeth in Harlem, officials said.

John Pica, 26, was charged with assault for the vicious Sunday morning ambush, police said. He has a long rap sheet that includes attacking another cop at the same place under the same circumstances, sources said.

Pica and three pals were smoking weed on the first floor of the Clinton Houses at around 1:30 a.m., when a 26-year-year-old female officer with about one year on the streets, and her partner, tried to arrest the foursome, police said.

The 5-foot-11, 220-pound thug charged at the cop, hitting her and sending her flying down a four-step landing until she fell, face-first, on the ground, police said. All four suspects ran, leaving the cop on the ground with several missing and broken teeth, officials said.

“He basically pushed her down the stairs and she fell face-first,” a source said.

Officers at the scene.Christopher Sadowski

She needed emergency dental surgery and suffered cuts to her face and head pain, authorities said. She has since been released from New York Presbyterian Hospital.

The officer and her partner were assigned to Operation Impact, which beefs up patrols in high-crime areas by flooding them with cops fresh out of the Police Academy.

Pica’s history of run-ins goes back to when he was a juvenile, sources said. His most recent was for stealing from a woman in July, sources said. In 2011, he sneaked into a restricted area at Mt. Sinai Hospital and stole a woman’s purse, sources added.

He has several prior arrests for pot possession, drug sales, possession of a firearm, panhandling, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, records show.

In Sept. 2008, he was caught playing dice and smoking pot in the same building at the Clinton Houses where Sunday night’s attack occurred, sources said. “He fought with the cop there and left him with a cut and bruise to his left arm,” a source said.