A postal worker was shot after intervening in a carjacking in the Bronx on Tuesday afternoon, according to authorities.
Clarence Brooks, 27, of Edenwald, forced an off-duty postal worker out of his car at gunpoint at East 232nd Street and Carpenter Avenue in Wakefield at about 5 p.m., police said.
An on-duty postal worker saw the carjacking and attempted to stop Brooks with his truck, they said. But Brooks, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest, shot at the worker’s truck, grazing the worker in the arm, police said.
Brooks drove off in the stolen Honda and crashed it shortly after. He then tried to carjack another vehicle, but the driver, a woman, did not comply, police said.
“He opens the door, he gets in the car with her, points the gun into her body, we believe into her rib area, demands that she drive the car. She refuses,” Deputy Chief Jason Wilcox said at a news conference after the incident.
Wilcox said the woman got out of the car. Brooks then drove the stolen Nissan Pathfinder, but crashed it as well, police said.
Brooks opened fire again when he couldn’t get out of the vehicle, police said.
He was arrested and later charged with attempted murder and robbery.
The postal worker who was hit by the bullet was taken to the hospital and treated for a nonlife threatening injury, police said.
