Police and hospital officials had no updates on Rios or his prognosis yesterday, but his long stint in the hospital makes it clear the veteran detective has serious injuries.
TRENTON — Detective Edgar Rios spent his 12th day in the hospital yesterday, where he is recovering from two gunshot wounds, and his condition remained the same: critical but stable.
Fellow city police officers are awaiting any indication Rios is getting better. Before Rios and Detective James Letts, who was shot in the shoulder during the Aug. 15 shootout that left Rios wounded, three other Trenton officers had been shot in the line of duty since the 1970s.
Moe Crosby, the department’s historian, says it’s probably a combination of good fortune and Trenton’s relatively small size that there haven’t been more police officers shot.
“I think it’s a little bit of both,” Crosby said last night. He said aggressive police investigations help to curb violence against officers. “If you don’t make the homicide arrests, people will think they can get away.”
Police and hospital officials had no updates on Rios or his prognosis yesterday, but his long stint in the hospital makes it clear the veteran detective has serious injuries.
In early 2002, Officer Quentin Hayes was released from the hospital eight days after being shot in the neck and groin during a gunfight on New Year’s Eve. Police at the time credited Hayes’ sister, Officer Shonda Hayes, for keeping her brother from dying when she held her hand over his bleeding neck during the ride to the hospital.
That shooting was on Dec. 31, 2001 and the most recent time prior to this month that Trenton officers had been injured by gunfire in the line of duty. There are striking similarities: Another officer in the 2001 shooting, Officer Joseph Esposito, was shot in the shoulder, like Letts. In both shootings, the armed suspect was angry with an ex-girlfriend, who lived at the scene where the shots were exchanged. Both suspects were 23-year-old men.
Yet the accounts are not identical. After struggling with Hayes and Esposito, hiding inside the apartment, and coming out to shoot again, William Champion was shot dead by two backup officers. Eric McNeil, who police say shot Rios and Letts, was killed by gunfire from one of those two detectives almost immediately.
Another difference: Hayes was 25 years old when he was shot. Rios is 53.
For Crosby, who came on the force in 1985, and the winnowing generation of senior officers that includes Rios, the sudden shooting this month by a gunman who emerged from a house on Hobart Avenue is shocking.
“It just can happen at any time to anybody, anywhere,” Crosby said. “I’m sure the Vegas bookmakers would have very high odds of that happening.”
Rios, who is the second most-senior man left on the department, came on the job in 1981. Even he was not a member of the force when Officer Andrew Puca Jr. was shot in the chest on Sept. 10, 1980, alongside sheriff’s officers serving a child support warrant on Brunswick Avenue.
Puca, who was not wearing a bulletproof vest, may have been spared by a pocket calendar in his right breast pocket held together by a paper clip. Crosby said Puca maintained the papers and metal deflected the bullet just enough to keep the shooting from being fatal.
The most recent Trenton officer shot dead in the line of duty was Patrolman Abner Braun, who while on motorcycle patrol on May 27, 1919 chased a stolen car into Bucks County, where he was killed by the suspects.
Police and union officials in all the shooting cases have said the crisis brings members of the department together as nothing else does. The community has joined in to help Rios and Letts, and the tally of people and organizations offering help is only growing.
Today, the Trenton Thunder minor-league baseball team will be pitching in for fundraising efforts to help Rios’ and Letts’ families.
“When this happened, our first instinct — like many people in the area — was we’ve got to help,” Thunder Chief Operating Officer Will Smith said.
Those buying tickets to today’s game online at trentonthuder.com and who use the code TRENTONPD will see 100 percent of the money from their ticket sale go to the relief fund. Additionally, Trenton officers will be selling 50/50 tickets prior to the 7:05 p.m. game, which is also Kids Eat Free night.
Despite speculation about police and the feelings they may have in the wake of the most recent shootings, Crosby said police have no ill will toward the community, since the shooter is no longer a threat.
“There’s not heightened tensions out there,” Crosby said. “There was more tension during the Runyon-Palumbo incident,” where two officers were shot at on Stuyvesant Avenue last year.
Officers realize Rios and Letts walked into an unpredictable situation.
“Basically, I would say, they ran into a sociopath who got the jump on them,” Crosby said.
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.
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