A pair of plainclothes NYPD officers who had just completely their shifts  were shot multiple times as they responded to the robbery of a Chinese restaurant in the Bronx last night, shocking a city that is still reeling from the assassination of two officers just weeks before, and just an day after one of those officers was buried.

Officer Andrew Dossi was struck in the left arm and lower back, and is in critical condition. The other officer, Aliro Pellarano, was shot in the left arm and grazed in the chest. Both officers are expected to survive.

Police have a “person of interest” in custody after a person matching the description of one of the two robbers showed up at a New York hospital with a gunshot wound, but there have not been any arrests made at this time.

At this time it appears that only one suspect fired at the officers, and the weapon he used isn’t the kind normally associated with crime… at least not in the last century.

A firearm recovered near the scene of a carjacked and crashed Camaro getaway vehicle is a single-action pistol, of the kind that most people associate with the Old West cowboys and gunfighters.

While I’m by no means an expert on single-action revolvers, this one has the distinctive lines—including a squared-off trigger guard—which seems to indicate that the revolver is probably a modern single-action revolver, a Ruger Super Blackhawk, which were first made in the mid-1950s. If this is correct, this a six-shot .44 Magnum pistol typically only used for hunting, certain kinds of target shooting, or self-defense from large and dangerous game.

If media accounts are accurate and only the six-gun-toting robber was armed and fired shots, it verges on being incredible that he was able to make four hits in six shots or less, when the typical combat accuracy in fights with handguns typically hovers around 17-percent.

While the .44 Magnum cartridge is movie-famous for the speech delivered by Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” Callahan saying,  “…this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow you head clean off,” the .44 Magnum tends to be no more effective and sometimes less effective than more common self-defense cartridges against human targets.

Designed from the ground-up as a hunting cartridge with an emphasis on deep penetration, the most common cartridges for the caliber tend to completely pass through human targets without completely expending their energy. At the same time, the .44 Magnum in a long-barreled pistol such as this Ruger is capable of defeating many kinds of body armor and can cause significant crush trauma even when stopped by soft body armor.

It is not known if the officers were wearing body armor as they responded to the call.

The robber who fired the shots is clearly show in security camera video (above). The NYPD has not said whether or not this robber or the other suspect is the one that may be the “person of interest” that sought treatment at NY Presbyterian hospital. It is believed that other officers responding to the crime were able to return fire after the two plainclothes officers were injured.

A rental vehicle that may have transported the injured person of interest has also been impounded at the hospital. Officially, both suspects are said to be at large and wanted at this time.

UPDATE: Multiple news sources are stating that the NYPD has three suspects in custody.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was apparently told to “get lost” by the critically injured Officer Dossi when the Mayor tried to visit him at the hospital. The majority of the NYPD  holds de Blasio accountable for spreading anti-cop hate that led to the assassination of officers several weeks ago.