A Brooklyn youth who narrowly missed shooting and possibly killing an off-duty Bajan cop, but was injured instead by the sharpshooting officer is to spend the next 20 years in prison for his actions.
And Ferris Jones, a former student of the Foundation School who is now a police detective says she is satisfied with the sentence imposed on 20-year-old Winston Cox after he pleaded guilty to attempting to kill and assault her inside a Brooklyn hairdressing salon in October last year.
“Twenty years is fair,” said Jones, better known across the City and in the New York Police Department as “Jonesey”.
Cox had faced a possible 40-year sentence behind bars if he had gone to trial and was convicted of a variety of violent offences arising out of the City’s most dramatic confrontations between a crook and a cop in recent years.
The youth had burst into a Brooklyn beauty parlour, attempted to hold up “Jonesey”, the salon owner, an employee and another customer announcing “this is a robbery, I will kill you.”
But what he didn’t know was that the fearless cop who wears her hair in braids was in the place. After shepherding the women into a bathroom and advising them to get down on the floor, “Jonesey” emerged with gun in hand; identifying herself as a police officer she ordered him to drop his weapon. He refused and started shooting, barely missing the Bajan with a bullet that whizzed past her head.
According to eyewitnesses and Jones herself, in textbook fashion she fired a single shot into the door knob, locking the mechanism and trapping the thug inside. She then shot the gun out of his hand, injuring him and when he realized he was trapped, he kicked out a panel of glass in the door and escaped, leaving a trail of blood. He was subsequently tracked down and arrested within 72 hours.
Across the city and the country, the Bajan was hailed as a hero, mainly for her bravery, calm reaction under fire and marksmanship. She was promptly promoted to detective by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelley, while Mayor Michael Bloomberg said “this is a story that will be told at the Police Department for years to come.”
Kelley put it differently at the time: “her reserve under fire was matched only by her marksmanship.”
Cox agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a shorter prison term and Jones and the other women in the salon were in the courtroom to see the outcome.
Lewis Lieberman, an assistant district attorney who was ready to prosecute Cox said that they “did not take this plea [deal] lightly.”
As for Cox’ female accomplice, Nefrititi Earl, 20, also admitted that she held the door open so that Cox could enter the salon, pleaded guilty and was sent to prison for 42 months.
A third perpetrator, Steven McLeod had previously pleaded guilty to supplying Cox with the gun and got two years in prison.