New Holsters Coming To All NYPD Officers After Shooting With Gun Taken From Cop

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Every officer in the NYPD will get a new holster after a murder this summer revealed a dangerous flaw in the existing ones.

As WCBS 880's Alex Silverman reported, NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill mentioned the plan in a press briefing earlier this week.

"We're in the process of upgrading holsters, I think if you remember that incident up in the Bronx," O'Neill said.

The incident was the August shooting that killed Bronx bodega worker Wali Camara.

The shooting melee happened early Tuesday, Aug. 9, at the A&M Deli, at East 198th Street and Valentine Avenue in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx. It all started with a quarrel over $2.

Efrain Guzman, 30, who has also been identified as Efram Guzman, was charged with attempted murder of a police officer, murder, robbery, assault, criminal possession of a firearm, menacing a police officer, and reckless endangerment in the incident.

Police said Camara ran across Valentine Avenue to the bodega – the A&M Deli at 230 E. 198th St., - to warn the people there that he was familiar with Guzman.

Locals flagged down police.

Two responding officers were trying to escort Guzman out of the store when he grabbed one officer's gun from its holster and fired 15 times. Camara was fatally struck.

The suspect was later shot and wounded by another officer.

Mody Doucoure, Camara's brother-in-law, spoke about the incident this week.

"While you shouldn't take human, a beautiful human being's life lost for them to make a change," Doucoure said. "There's no sense for that for sure."

The new holsters will have an automatic-looking mechanism. Officers will be trained in how to use them next week.

The New York Daily News reported the current NYPD holsters were hand-me-downs from the LAPD, which upgraded to more secure ones more than 20 years ago.