An instinctive defensive move – raising the arm to protect the head – helped cost Police Officer Dillon Stewart his life, his partner testified yesterday.
The partner, Paul Lipka, said both men reacted instinctively when they saw a black 9 mm pointed at them through the window of a red Infiniti they’d just pulled over.
“I leaned forward and I observed a hand, a male’s hand with a firearm in it,” Lipka said.
“I heard two loud bangs, and I looked up, the car was going down the street . . . I raised my arm up like this. Officer Stewart raised his left arm up like this.”
Lipka demonstrated for the jury, raising his left arm so that his hand and wrist shielded his head.
The move proved fatal for Stewart. A single slug found its way past his bulletproof vest just under the left armhole, piercing the cop’s left lung and tearing a hole in his heart.
Lipka gave the Brooklyn Supreme Court jury a blow-by-blow of how he and Stewart saw the car run a red light at Flatbush and Church avenues the morning of Nov. 28, 2005.
“I looked at Officer Stewart and said, ‘You wanna go stop him?’ ” Lipka said. “He said, ‘Yes.’ ”
Prosecutors used a new NYPD crime-scene computer-imaging program to show jurors how the alleged killer, Allan Cameron, 29, led the two cops on the chase.
Later, under cross-examination by defense lawyer Ed Friedman, Lipka added, “That was the very last thing I said to him.”
Cameron faces life in prison if convicted of firing the shot that killed Stewart.