UES Officer Injured In Wrong-Way Driver Smash On Park Ave: Police

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A driver headed the wrong way down Park Avenue smashed into an officer from the 19th Precinct who was responding to a repeat $10,000 robbery at a high-end Upper East Side outerwear shop, police said.

As officers were safeguarding a car ditched by a group of crooks on Park Avenue near East 71st Street at about 4:30 p.m., a 24-year-old woman operating a Lexus sedan suddenly flouted all obvious traffic laws and drove her luxury car north on the southbound lanes of Park Avenue, officials said.

When an NYPD officer tried to stop the dangerous driver, he was struck by the car, police said.

The officer sustained minor injuries in the crash and was rushed to New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, officials said.

Police said the driver was taken into custody, but has yet to be charged as of 2:30 a.m. as officers awaited blood test results.

The mayhem all began just minutes earlier at 4:10 p.m. when officers were responding to a $10,000 theft from Mackage, a Madison Avenue store near East 68th Street which specializes in pricy outerwear, officials said.

Three men had entered the store and grabbed goods from the store's racks before fleeing to a vehicle outside, police said.

A month earlier, the store was robbed in a nearly identical manner, with three crooks also stealing about $10,000, police said at the time.

But in this newest Mackage thievery, the cops almost caught the crooks.

The three men piled into a gray Nissan Altima with Georgia plates looking to make a quick getaway, but officers were already on the scene, police said.

Once the crooks spotted the police, they decided to ditch their car in the middle of Park Avenue near East 72nd Street and fled on foot towards Lexington Avenue, officials said.

Police couldn't confirm if there was a foot pursuit.

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).