Cops: Police officer shot in Hempstead

A Hempstead Police Department officer was shot in an early-morning incident on Washington Street, but police described the injuries as "non-life-threatening."

The identity of the officer has not been released and the circumstances surrounding the shooting remain under investigation Friday morning, Nassau County and Hempstead police said.

Officials said two people, including the officer, were shot in the incident. The officer was transported to Mercy Hospital, while the other person, believed to be the person in custody, was taken to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow. The condition of that person was not immediately clear.

Police said the officer was wearing a bulletproof vest -- and that it likely saved his life.

The shooting occurred near Cooper Place at about 3:45 a.m. and the scene is near a parking lot behind a nightclub and a line of stores. At daybreak Friday, five crime-scene marker cones marked the locations of bullet shell casings in the street on Washington -- and a sixth cone marked the location of another casing in an adjacent lot.