Decorated Officer Dillon Stewart, 35, took one deadly bullet through his left armpit — a mere quarter-inch above the protective plate of his armored vest — while driving in pursuit of the Glock-toting thug in Flatbush around 2:49 a.m., cops said.
Suspected cop killer Allan Cameron — who last night also was fingered in the infamous gunpoint mugging of an off-duty officer in Crown Heights on Nov. 19 — got off at least five shots at Stewart and his partner, Paul Lipka, authorities said.
SUSPECT EYED IN 2ND SHOOT
A hero Brooklyn cop yesterday was shot through the heart but lived long enough to help nab his attacker — who had mercilessly pumped a bullet into another officer just a week ago, police said.
Decorated Officer Dillon Stewart, 35, took one deadly bullet through his left armpit — a mere quarter-inch above the protective plate of his armored vest — while driving in pursuit of the Glock-toting thug in Flatbush around 2:49 a.m., cops said.
Suspected cop killer Allan Cameron — who last night also was fingered in the infamous gunpoint mugging of an off-duty officer in Crown Heights on Nov. 19 — got off at least five shots at Stewart and his partner, Paul Lipka, authorities said.
Stewart later underwent hours-long emergency surgery at Kings County Hospital but died around 8:40 a.m., with his stricken wife, mother and sister by his side.
The beloved cop also had two daughters, ages 6 years and 6 months.
“Whoever did it, Judgment Day will come,” said the officer’s grieving mother-in-law at her daughter’s home last night. “We leave everything in the hands of God.”
Cameron, charged early today with murder, was driving with a valid license at the time — even after racking up a slew of dangerous traffic violations, including once hitting a police sergeant with his car mirror, officials said.
He allegedly shot Stewart during a wild car chase apparently sparked when the perpetrator ran a red light on Church Avenue near Flatbush Avenue.
After being shot, Stewart miraculously managed to hang on long enough to follow Cameron for a block and a half to direct other officers to where he was.
“Oh, I’ve been shot!” Stewart told his stunned partner after finally stumbling out of the pair’s unmarked car near 21st Street, where Cameron fled in his vehicle.
Visibly distraught Police Commissioner Ray Kelly hailed Stewart for helping nail his alleged killer even after taking the bullet.
“He showed remarkable tenacity and courage in the chase keeping the shooter in sight,” Kelly said.
Within minutes of Stewart’s death, police reported they had finally nabbed Cameron in his girlfriend’s nearby apartment.
“We got him!” an officer could be heard yelling over the radio of a police car parked outside the hospital, just as one cop leaving the building was seen bursting into tears upon learning his comrade was dead.
The tragedy unfolded during what should have been just another routine night for Stewart, a five-year veteran of the force.
He and his partner worked the night shift — 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. — wearing uniforms but in unmarked cars. The most action they usually saw involved relatively low-level crimes like stolen cars.
Officials say they were parked in their green Impala last night outside a nightclub on Church Ave., a reputed trouble spot, when they spotted Cameron in a 1990 red Infiniti speeding through the light. The cops immediately took off in pursuit, with Stewart at the wheel.
Cameron wound up heading north on Flatbush, taking the inside lane of the double-lane road, cops said.
As Stewart pulled up next to him at Church Avenue, Cameron coldly gripped the wheel as he whipped out a black 9mm Glock and pumped bullets through his open passenger-side window, police said.
Three bullets imbedded in Stewart’s driver’s-side door. Another tore through the police car’s rear left door.
The fatal slug grazed the bottom metal rim of Stewart’s open window before striking him.
Still, apparently unaware he had been even hit, Stewart managed to drive another block and a half.
Then, doubling over in his seat, Stewart stopped the car and stumbled out.
A cop who had just arrived on the scene, Mark Pihlava, helped Lipka get Stewart back into his patrol car and drive the wounded cop to the hospital. Before doing so, they both managed to get off some shots at the fleeing suspect, officials said.
Meanwhile, other cops descended on an apartment building at 131 E. 21st St., where Cameron’s relatives live and where he was last seen speeding his car into the garage.
Cameron had been illegally using a parking spot there after the owner died, authorities said.
The suspect closed the garage door behind him with a remote control, cops said. By the time police got inside, he was gone — likely escaping through a small window whose metal bars had been jarred loose.
Their break came when they discovered a vehicle registration in the getaway car that belonged to a man on East 21st Street. The man later identified Cameron as the person he had recently sold another car to.
Having ID’d him, cops finally traced Cameron to his new girlfriend’s Ocean Avenue address about a block away.
He gave up after heavily armed officers knocked on the sixth-floor pad’s door.
His girlfriend, who identified herself only as Maritza, told The Post she had been sleeping when Cameron came to the apartment and “he didn’t tell me nothing.”
Cops said he shouted out, “I’m in trouble!” as he ran for cover in the home.
The Glock and its clip were later recovered in the alleyway behind the apartment building.
It matched shell casings found in the car Cameron was driving, police said.
Cops said they also discovered about 50 dime bags of pot in the vehicle.
Cameron’s friends told police he had been smoking a lot of crack lately, causing him to fight.
“He’d been acting like a Jekyll and Hyde, and even his friends were staying away from him,” one source said.
Late last night, off-duty cop Wiener Phillippe fingered Cameron in a lineup as the thug who robbed and shot him outside his apartment building. Wiener had said his shooter drove an Infiniti.
Sources said that robbery may give cops a motive in the fatal cop shooting, suggesting that Cameron violently flipped out seeing the cops pull up to his car, thinking they were going to nab him in Phillippe’s case.
Cameron was charged with first-degree murder for Stewart — the first city cop killed this year in the line of duty — and attempted murder for Phillippe.
As for yesterday’s gun-down, Cameron was still insisting to cops that he wasn’t the one who fired the shots. But police who witnessed parts of the chase said he was alone in the car, authorities said.
His lengthy record already appears to read like a bad case of junk justice.
His priors include a bust in January 2003 for reckless endangerment, driving without a license, running red lights and speeding. A month later, he was busted for reckless endangerment in a car again — when he was driving erratically and clipped a police sergeant on the street.
He wound up getting three years’ probation for the first offense — even after probation officers recommended he be jailed. He walked on the second rap.
Cameron’s stepbrother, Denory Rogers, said the suspect was a nice guy with a penchant for fixing cars. “When he’s home, he’s OK,” Rogers said. “I don’t know how he is on the street.”
Mayor Bloomberg called Stewart — awarded four medals during his career — “a hero to all of New York City. There are few things more tragic,” he said of the cop’s death.