A four-time felon carjacker who sparked a police-involved shooting in Queens that left an NYPD detective wounded has been hit with a flurry of criminal charges, including robbery and assault, police said Saturday.
Suspect Kevin Dubuisson, 28, is also facing charges of menacing, attempted robbery and attempted assault in connection to his 12-hour car-stealing spree that began in Midtown Manhattan and ended in Whitestone, Queens, where cops opened fire on him, believing he was armed.
NYPD Detective Corey Fisher, a Queens South narcotics cop, was shot in the arm and leg by another officer as they tried to apprehend Dubuisson on 21st Road near the Whitestone Expressway Service Road at around 8:50 a.m. Friday.
Dubisson, who was released from prison in March after serving 15 months on an attempted robbery conviction, had just beaten and robbed an Uber driver of his Toyota Highlander just moments before, police allege.
Cops had boxed the Highlander and were about to arrest Dubuisson when the shots were fired.
“It was a friendly-fire incident,” Mayor Adams said at Jamaica Hospital, where Det. Fisher was being treated Friday. “Thankfully, these injuries are not life-threatening and he’s expected to make a full recovery.”
“I want to be clear, regardless of who shot our detective, there’s one person responsible for starting the chain of events that landed us in the hospital today,” Adams said about Dubuisson. “This is a man who should have been behind bars, not on our streets.”
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Dubuisson has 10 unsealed arrests, mostly for robbery and assault, as well as a history of fighting with the police.
The suspect also had four interactions with cops between December 2012 and January 2023 where he was listed as mentally ill. It was not immediately disclosed if those incidents ended in arrests or hospitalizations.
The carjacker didn’t have a firearm on Friday, but had threatened to shoot at least two people an hour before the clash with police. He had also beaten the Uber driver with a metal object.
Cops had arrested the ex-con on Thursday afternoon for jumping a turnstile at the 28th St. station near Park Ave. South in Manhattan, but was let go with a desk appearance ticket.
That night, he stole two cars in Manhattan, which he either abandoned or crashed before heading into Queens.
On Friday morning, he tried to steal a car from a Mobil gas station on Parson’s Blvd., about a block from the shooting scene.
Surveillance footage acquired by the Daily News shows Dubuisson, wearing white pants and a light-colored jacket, pacing near the pumps at the gas station before jumping into a white car.
He was scared off by a station employee and a customer, who briefly chased him down 21st Road.
Minutes later, Dubuisson attempted to carjack a woman outside her home before zeroing in on the Uber driver.
New York’s top cop blamed changes to the state’s bail-reform rules for Dubuisson’s quick release after cops grabbed him for jumping the turnstile at the 28th St. station. Before the new laws took effect in 2019, someone on parole would have never been released on a turnstile-jumping offense, according to Tisch.
“He should not have been out on our streets this morning,” she said.
“Before going out to attempt a carjacking, he walked out of one of our criminal justice locations,” Mayor Adams added. “That is the definition of insanity — arresting the same person over and over again and expecting different results.”
Dubuisson’s arraignment in Queens Criminal Court was pending Saturday.
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