Officer Ivan Marcano: Off-duty cop shot trying to stop robbery, kills suspect (VIDEO)

An off-duty NYPD officer is in stable condition after he was shot in the chest by a robbery suspect, but still managed to return fire, striking and killing one of his attackers.

According to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Officer Ivan Marcano was a passenger in a car his girlfriend was driving at about 6:30 Wednesday night, when the couple encountered two men robbing a third man on Harrison Ave. in the Bronx.

Marcano told his girlfriend to call 9-11 before getting out of the car, showing his badge and gun and identifying himself as a police officer. A suspect immediately fired a shot, striking Marcano in the chest, before fleeing.

Marcano then got back into the car and his girlfriend began driving him to the hospital, Kelly said. As she approached a red light where a white Mustang was stopped, she honked the horn. The Mustang lurched forward, hitting a black livery cab. That’s when three suspects from the shooting got out of the Mustang.

Marcano got out of the car and took cover behind another car, while pressing his hand to his chest wound. He yelled at passersby to “get down” before using just one hand to fire a round in the suspects’ direction. He hit one suspect in the head, killing him, Kelly said.

The other suspects fled to Burnside Avenue, where Marcano chased them. There, he encountered an ambulance that happened to be parked on Burnside Ave. near Harrison Ave. The paramedics took him to Bronx Lebanon Hospital, where doctors determined the bullet had just narrowly missed his heart. Marcano is expected to recover.

“Officer Marcano joined the police department back in 2007 and he is assigned to Transit District 12,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. “Let me say that this is another case of guns in the wrong hands ending in violence.”

Bloomberg added, “Police Officer Marcano was protecting our city and putting his life on the line, even when he was off-duty. And it’s the work of officers like him that have pushed the number of shootings this year down and has us on pace for an all-time record low in murders this year.”