Female police officer shot to death in NY

An on-duty woman officer was shot to death while sitting in a police vehicle early Wednesday in Bronx, the northernmost borough of New York City.

Miosotis Familia, 48, a 12-year veteran of the New York Police Department, was hit in her head by a gunman through a passenger side window of a mobile command unit near the corner of Morris Avenue and East 183rd Street at around 12:30 a.m.

Two other police officers gunned down the shooter, who was later identified as Alexander Bonds, about a block away. The 34-year-old man served seven years in prison for a robbery before he was paroled in May 2013.

"This was an unprovoked direct attack on police officers who were assigned to keep the people of this city safe," Police Commissioner James O'Neill said, calling it an assassination, at a news conference at St. Barnabas Hospital where Familia was pronounced dead about three hours after the shooting.

Meanwhile, fifteen people were killed and over 90 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago between Friday afternoon and early Wednesday, according to the Chicago police department.

At least 42 victims were shot in a spate of violence between 3:30 p.m. Tuesday and 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, the police department said.

Last year, 66 people were shot, four of them fatally, over the U.S. Independence Day holiday weekend.

The shootings came as the police department -- as has become standard procedure during long holiday warm weather holiday weekends -- put more than 1,000 extra officers on the street.

The violent weekend brings the total number of people shot in Chicago so far in 2017 to more than 1,800, according to data maintained by the Chicago Tribune, still below the 2,035 recorded at same period of last year.

On Saturday, Chicago Police touted a 14-percent decline in shootings this year compared to the first six months of 2016, and they hoped to tamp down the holiday weekend violence with the help of a new gun violence strike force.