Cops charge fleeing NYC shoplifter after two cops injured

Police have arrested a pillow pinching shoplifter whose harried escape from a Bronx Target caused two pursuing officers to be hit by a passing car, police said Friday.

Manny Tate, 45, is facing robbery, reckless endangerment, aggravated assault on a police officer and other charges following the pillow theft at the Target on W. 225th St. in Marble Hill about 7:10 p.m. Thursday, cops said.

Two cops outside the store, ages 23 and 33, spotted Tate running out of the Target with the pillows and gave chase.

They stopped him in the middle of a rain-swept W. 225th St. when a grey Honda Civic plowed into all three of them.

“There was a loud boom,” Jeffrey Valdez, who witnessed the crash, told the Daily News Thursday. “Both of the officers were on the ground. They were both almost unconscious from the blast. There were multiple people trying to help them, but other people were saying don’t touch them.”

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Two stolen pillows tumbled down the street in the wind as EMS rushed the two cops to St. Barnabas Hospital with leg injuries.

Tate was taken to Jacobi Hospital where he was treated for internal injuries and body trauma. He was arrested at the hospital.

The 52-year-old Honda driver — who has one eye, according to relatives — remained at the scene and was given a summons for failure to exercise due care.

The driver had just left his mother’s Bronx home and was heading back to Edgewater, N.J. when he hit the officers, his niece Kelsey Casilla told the Daily News.

“He called and said he hit two police officers and a robber from Target,” said Kelsey Casilla, 21. “When he was a kid, he lost his left eye in an accident. He’s a good guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Tate’s arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court was pending as he recuperated at the hospital.

Cops had arrested Tate on petit larceny and possession of stolen property charges on Aug. 9, but he was released without bail during a brief arraignment hearing the next day, according to court records.