UPDATE: Police ID Man Charged With Shooting Cop in Huntington Station

UPDATE 1:07 p.m: Police have identified the man charged in the shooting as 22-year-old Sheldon Leftenant, of 7 Tippin Drive in Huntington Station. Leftenant is charged with attempted aggravated murder and resisting arrest. He is due to be arraigned in First District Court in Central Islip Thursday.

Original story:

A Suffolk County police officer was seriously injured after being shot twice by a man in a vehicle the officer had pulled over in Huntington Station late Wednesday night.

Officer Mark Collins, assigned to the Second Precinct Crime Section Gang Unit, is expected to survive and police say they arrested a man soon after the shooting on Mercer Court.

According to police, a 911 call came in at 11:59 p.m. reporting that an officer had been shot near 11 Mercer Court, just north of Jericho Turnpike.

Police said Collins was in an unmarked police vehicle when he pulled over a car with four people inside. As Collins and two other officers approached the vehicle, a man inside the car got out and confronted Collins, shooting the 12-year veteran twice, once in the neck and once in the hip, police said.

The suspected shooter was arrested around 1 a.m., about a block from the traffic stop, following a massive police search. Police have not released the identity of the man in custody.

Collins, of North Bellmore, was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he is listed in serious but stable condition.

Collins was able to communicate when he arrived at the hospital, but has since been placed in a medically induced coma, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said at an early morning press conference at the hospital.

“While we are at home, sleeping comfortably in our beds, these officers are out there working to apprehend the people who are doing harm,” Bellone said, according to a CBS 2 report. “We are grateful tonight that the officer has a good prognosis.”

Collins is a member of the North Bellmore Board of Fire Commissioners. He completed a term as chief of the North Bellmore Fire Department in April 2014.

SCPD Photo: Sheldon Leftenant

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