NYPD cop arrested for attempted murder for off-duty Bronx shooting over stolen car

An NYPD cop has been arrested for attempted murder for shooting a suspected car thief’s accomplice in the Bronx, leaving the man critically wounded, the Daily News has learned.

Officer Jonathan Baez, a 12-year veteran assigned to the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau, was stripped of his gun and shield and put on modified duty in the wake of the off-duty March 16 shooting and later suspended without pay.

He allegedly shot a 30-year-old man in the head he believed was involved in the theft of his family’s vehicle.

Baez was assigned to the Intelligence Bureau’s uniformed operations last February. His duties there included posts at both Gracie Mansion and City Hall, officials said.

On Thursday, he was arraigned on charges of attempted murder, assault, criminal use of a firearm and kidnapping in Bronx Criminal Court and ordered held on $250,000 bond. His lawyer said Baez will make bail.

The victim, who was shot in the head, remains on a respirator nearly three months after the shooting, officials said.

Baez was off duty tracking his stolen car when he spotted a vehicle he believed was used by a lookout working with the car thief and followed it, law enforcement sources said.

When that vehicle eventually pulled over and the driver got out on W. 231st St. near Albany Crescent in Kingsbridge about 9:15 p.m. Baez confronted him with his weapon drawn, the sources said.

One or two passengers remained in the suspected lookout car and when someone inside the car rolled down the window, Baez opened fire, hitting the front-seat passenger in the head, the sources said.

A stray shot shattered a window at The Bronx Public, a restaurant across street and lodged near the ceiling.

Surveillance video obtained by the Daily News shows a man exiting an SUV and approaching a white sedan with his pistol drawn. A man standing behind the sedan appears to kneel as the gunman approaches.

As the footage continues, the pair falls out of sight behind the white sedan for about a minute before the sedan suddenly speeds away, revealing one man splayed across the ground as the gunman appears to straddle him.

The driver of the white sedan took the critically wounded passenger to New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in upper Manhattan.

The wounded man’s girlfriend lives in a building just steps away from the scene and was on the phone with her boyfriend when he was shot, a neighbor told the Daily News at the time.

Following the shooting, Mayor Mamdani said he was “incredibly troubled” by the actions of the off-duty cop.

“I’m glad that the NYPD is investigating,” Mamdani said at the time.