The Brooklyn Eagle -- not to further unfortunate police stereotypes, as well as very good ones -- reports that an off-duty police officer disrupted an armed robbery at the Dunkin Donuts on Coney Island Avenue one recent Saturday morning:
It’s a well-known fact that an NYPD officer is never really off-duty.
That became clear a few weeks ago, when a Brooklyn cop getting breakfast for his children was allegedly shot at and drawn into a foot-chase after walking into an armed robbery at a Ditmas Park gas station. “I was leaving work at 6 a.m.,” Officer Michael Rakebrandt recalled of the incident a few Saturdays ago. “I was going to get donuts for my kids.”
Officer Rakebrandt, of the 71st Precinct, felt his instincts take over when he approached the gas station and saw through the glass doors that a skinny man in a gray hoodie was standing next to the clerk behind the Dunkin’ Donuts counter in the Gulf gas station.
“Right away, I knew something was up,” Rakebrandt told the Eagle. When he got closer, he “saw the first perp at the Dunkin’ Donuts counter standing next to the clerk [and] grabbing money out of the register, so at that point I knew there was a robbery in progress.”
Rakebrandt, who is the brother-in-law of Eagle advertising executive Marc Hibsher, was off-duty and wearing street clothes at the time. He walked right up to the Dunkin’ Donuts counter as if he didn’t know what was happening and started to order a coffee, as the clerk silently motioned with his eyes at the suspect.
“I said, ‘Can I just get a medium?’ drew my gun, and said ‘Please don’t move, get the f--- on the ground,’” Rakebrandt said.
The robber’s eyes “got real wide” and he dropped to the ground shaking nervously, as Rakebrandt came behind the Dunkin’ Donuts counter with his gun drawn on the suspect.
But that’s when he saw a second robber across the room.
This second suspect shouted, “They’re outside!” in what Rakebrandt believes was an attempt to lure him away from the first suspect. But Rakebrandt stayed where he was and tried to watch both men.
The first suspect, he said, was writhing on the ground and pulling his shirt up, shouting that he didn’t have anything, but Rakebrand could see a revolver handle poking out of his belt.
Then, the second suspect leapt over the counter, “looks around, and lets a shot go while I took cover. He goes out the door,” Rakebrandt said.
The suspect fired one bullet, hitting an ice-cream freezer. According to a law enforcement source, it is unclear if the gun was fired intentionally or by accident.
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