NYPD detective shot in standoff says he wanted to get job done as safely as possible

A veteran detective who was shot by a mentally deranged man during a standoff in Brooklyn in June said he called his wife while he was still bleeding to put her mind at ease and was hoping to be back at the NYPD’s elite Emergency Services Unit soon.Detective Matthew Gale, who was promoted to second-grade detective during a ceremony at One Police Plaza in Manhattan Friday, was shot on June 19 while trying to stop a barricaded gunman from hurting his elderly neighbors, according to police.“I was just thinking about getting the job done as safely as possible,” Gale said in an interview with his union, his first public words since the incident. “I don’t think I did anything that any of the other guys in the Emergency Services Unit wouldn’t have done themselves.”The nearly 20-year veteran was shot by 48-year-old Lamin Simmons – before four officers returned fire, killing the gunman, cops said. The standoff started when cops responded to calls of shots fired inside a Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone on Kosciusko Street.Officers heard more gunfire coming from inside the home, and when they entered, they found Simmons holding a gun, police said.The NYPD’s ESU, Hostage Negotiation Team and other specialized units then responded. Gale was shot in the shin after going into the building and confronting Simmons.

“I’m just working really hard to get back to where I was,” Gale said Friday, in a Detectives Endowment Association video.“They put a rod and a bunch of screws in my leg,” he said.At first he couldn’t walk, but is now getting around on crutches and going through physical therapy.His wife Kelly and their two children attended the ceremony.“I was able to call her from the street that day,” he said.

“She was like, ‘If you hadn’t done that I probably would have been terrified but you did and I knew you were going to be OK.’”During the two-hour standoff, Simmons hurled a microwave, a lamp and kitchenware from a rear window, narrowl...