What we know about Randy ‘Popper’ Jones, career criminal nabbed for shooting NYPD cop

The man taken into custody for allegedly shooting an off-duty NYPD officer is a career criminal who has been arrested in the city over a dozen times — including for strangulation and grand larceny — according to police sources.

Randy “Popper” Jones was nabbed Monday after opening fire on the officer and a relative when they came for a phony car purchase in East New York, Brooklyn, over the weekend, cops said. The officer was left fighting for his life at the hospital.

It was the latest outrage in an apparent life of crime.

Jones, 38, has a lengthy rap sheet dating back to his early 20s, according to police sources. Most of the arrests took place in Brooklyn, they said.

In 2014, he was arrested for strangulation in the 25th Precinct in East Harlem, where he lives. That same year, he was busted on two counts of grand larceny and one count of petit larceny.

Most recently, he was charged with criminal contempt and driving without a license in 2019, sources said.

Jones’ first known arrests came when he was about 23, for drug possession and criminal trespass, according to the sources.

After that, he racked up arrests on charges including misdemeanor assault and aggravated harassment, they said.

At the time of the officer’s shooting, Jones was wanted on a warrant for the 2019 case of driving without a license.

Hours before he was taken into custody, the BMW he is believed to have driven from the shooting scene was discovered abandoned on 129th St. and Park Ave. in Manhattan — just a few blocks from his most recent address, cops and sources said.

When shown a photo of the BMW, a person who lives at Jones’ apartment building noted it was usually parked outside.

Jones lived there with his girlfriend and three children, said the man, who declined to give his name. The couple had recently had a baby girl, he added.

“I would have never guessed it,” the stunned man said of Jones. “He was never violent.”

Cops launched an intensive manhunt to catch the suspected shooter.

“The police were here all day tracing his movements form the building video,” said the neighbor. “We didn’t know it was a cop,” he said of the victim.

Jones was awaiting charges at Brooklyn’s 75th Precinct stationhouse as of Monday night, cops and sources said. Police were still conducting their investigation at Jones’ apartment building.