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An off-duty Nassau County police officer shot and wounded a robbery suspect after the officer stopped to fill up at an Elmont gas station and stumbled upon a hold up on Wednesday morning, authorities said.

A 26-year-old man walked into the Liberty Gas Station on Hempstead Turnpike, displayed what appeared to be a handgun, went behind the counter and stole cash from the register shortly after 7 a.m., police said.

The off-duty officer arrived to fill his car with gas, saw the robbery in progress and ordered the suspect to stop while the robber tried to flee the scene, police said.


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“The subject turned and pointed his weapon at the officer forcing the officer to discharge his weapon,” police said in a statement. The wounded robber ran away but was apprehended later in a parked car.

The suspect was taken to a local hospital where he is being treated for non-life threatening injuries. The gas station clerk and two customers in the store at the time were not injured.

Police recovered a simulated handgun and the stolen cash. The suspect was not identified because police have not yet filed charges. Police did not identify the officer.

The man is the seventh shot by police on Long Island this year. Suffolk police officers shot and killed a man in his Selden home last month, the day after Nassau police officers shot an armed North Bellmore home invasion suspect during a police chase.

Nassau police officers also shot and wounded a man who allegedly tried to run them over in Oyster Bay in August, an alleged knife-wielding Point Lookout burglary suspect the next day and a man who authorities said lunged at them with knives in his Massapequa home in March.

A Nassau officer was fatally shot by an MTA police officer immediately after that shooting, which came a month after another Nassau officer was struck and killed while conducting a traffic stop on the Long Island Expressway.

Narcotics investigators in Suffolk also shot and wounded a man who opened fire on undercover officers during a drug deal in Farmingville in August.

Two Nassau police officers are also under investigation for shooting and wounding a cabbie in Huntington Station while the officers were off duty in February.