(Reuters) – A group of men shot and wounded two police officers in an ambush-style attack outside an apartment building in Miami late on Monday, media reported.
The officers were in an unmarked car at about 10 p.m. at the Annie Coleman housing projects, known as “The Rockies,” when the men walked up to the vehicle and opened fire, the Miami Herald newspaper reported.
At least one of the officers fired back, John Rivera, president of the Miami-Dade police union, said, and both survived the attack in the city’s Brownsville district.
“They were outnumbered and outgunned. God was watching over them tonight,” Rivera told the newspaper.
The unidentified officers were in stable condition at a local hospital, Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez told journalists.
“Our officers are out there every night risking their lives trying to bring safety to the community and what you saw today was an ambush-style attack on our police officers,” Perez said.
One of the officers was shot in the leg and the other was grazed by a bullet, the Herald reported.
Other police near the scene rushed the officers to hospital in the back of a pick-up truck, the newspaper reported. The two wounded men are part of a homicide task force-gang unit, it added.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
