A pair of Staten Island police officers responding to an emergency call were rushed to the hospital after they lost control of their marked cruiser and slammed into the front of a Mexican restaurant, cops said Saturday.
The crash comes just hours after a Manhattan cop was pinned between his cruiser and an out-of-control Dodge Charger, officials said.
The two officers were speeding to a report of a man with a gun in St. George at about 11:50 p.m. Friday when a car in front of them made a U-turn near the corner of Victory Blvd. and Montgomery Ave., police said.
The officer driving the cruiser veered around the turning vehicle, lost control of the wheel, hopped the curb and slammed into the shuttered Frutas & Abarrotas Mexico II.
The cruiser dented and dislodged the store’s roll-down gate, officials said. EMS rushed the officers to an area hospital with minor injuries.
Workers were replacing the roll-down gate Saturday.
On Friday in the West Village, an out-of-control Dodge Charger slammed into a 26-year-old uniformed officer walking to his marked SUV parked on W. 13th St. and Seventh Ave.
The 43-year-old driver of the Charger was heading down Seventh Ave. when he changed lanes, accidentally clipped a street sweeper and pinned the cop against his patrol vehicle around 7:15 a.m., witnesses said.
“It was pretty, pretty fast and then he crashed into a sanitation car. He crashed over there and then he’s doing circles and then he crashed out with a police car,” said Abi Aguirre, 21, who works at Bagel RX. Aguirre reviewed surveillance footage of the crash that showed the Charger spinning out of control before hitting the officer.
“There was a police officer trying to go into the car … he tried to run away when he saw the car,” said Aguirre. “The sound of the car, when he was doing circles … it was pretty, pretty heavy.”
Both the officer and driver of the Charger were taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries, cops said.
