Original Blog Entry: Female off-duty cop shoots girlfriend after...

truesee — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:49:44 GMT

Off-duty cop Ekeythia Dunston shoots girlfriend after text message sparks fight, police sources say

Kevin Deutsch, Rocco Parascandola and Joe Kemp

DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Ekeythia Dunston (right) shot Erica LeGall (left) during a fight that was sparked by a text message.

An off-duty cop fired two rounds into her girlfriend early Monday after a suspicious text message sparked an all-out battle between the pair, police sources said.

Ekeythia Dunston, 32, and her 42-year-old partner, Erica LeGall, had returned to their Harlem home from a night on a Circle Line boat tour when Dunston - a police officer for eight years - got a text message from another woman about 3:15 a.m., the sources said.

An argument soon erupted between them, as their two sons - Jayleen, 7, who is LeGall's, and Daichoi, 13, who is Dunston's - were asleep in their room, sources and witnesses said.

I heard them arguing, said neighbor Connie Sedgewick, 41. It sounded like it was over another woman.

LeGall grabbed a clothes iron and whacked Dunston across her skull, leaving a tennis-ball-sized welt on her head, a source said.

Then Dunston grabbed her pistol.

Lisa Evans, 41, whose apartment is below the couple's, said she heard shouts: No! No! No! Don't shoot!

Dunston squeezed off two shots, striking her gal pal once in the thigh and once in her shoulder, cops said. The boys and their 32-year-old baby-sitter were unharmed in the dispute, police said.

It's horrible, said Dunston's mother, Ekeythia, 51. It's been a fog on me all day. I hope everyone's okay.

LeGall was taken to Harlem Hospital, where she was in critical but stable condition. She was charged with assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Dunston, who is works out of the 108th Precinct in Long Island City, was treated for her head injury at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia.

She was arrested and charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child. She was suspended without pay. The city's Administration for Children's Services took the boys away, the elder Dunston said.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/08/10/2010-08-10_cop_shoots_gal_pal_after_text_sparks_fight.html#ixzz0wCcj1j3r

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