AG Jeff Sessions praises NYPD cop from LI who shot terror suspect

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday hailed the NYPD cop from Long Island who shot and incapacitated an accused truck-attack terrorist, calling Officer Ryan Nash a hero worthy of nationwide praise.

In remarks in lower Manhattan, Sessions praised Nash, who with a fellow First Precinct officer confronted Sayfullo Saipov as he allegedly brandished what appeared to be firearms after mowing down people along a bike path in Hudson River Park.

“His quick response, courageous action — under pressure — prevented the attack from getting worse,” Sessions told the audience of federal agents and prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office. “He is rightly regarded as a hero today — not just in New York, but across America. He symbolizes the best in law enforcement.”

Nash, 28, of Medford, has been on the police force for five years.

Sessions, who called Nash’s reaction typical of law enforcement heroics, said President Donald Trump — “a New Yorker, a law-and-order president” — had ordered him to “back the blue” in policies “and he’s serious about it.”

Such orders have frustrated advocates of police accountability.

For example, earlier this year, Sessions ordered the Justice Department to scrutinize consent decrees between the federal government and local police departments, common during the Obama presidency, to settle accusations of undue violence and other misconduct. Sessions said at the time that such decrees can lower police morale.

The attorney general did not address policy specifics on policing Thursday.

His praise for Nash came at the beginning of a nearly 30-minute speech about the Trump administration’s plans to combat crime and terrorism, including ditching a diversity-based lottery program for immigration, renewing warrantless surveillance capabilities and building a border wall with Mexico.

Tuesday’s attack killed eight people and injured nearly a dozen more.

Nash, speaking Wednesday, a day after the attack, had shrugged off praise.

“I appreciate the public recognition of the actions of myself and my fellow officers yesterday,” he said then. “Although I feel we were just doing our jobs like thousands of officers do every day, I understand the importance of yesterday’s [Tuesday’s] events and the role it played in that recognition.”

Nash confronted the suspect with his partner Officer John Hasiotis, of Suffolk County.

Saipov, a legal permanent resident of the United States who came from Uzbekistan in 2010, was being held without bail on charges of providing material support to terrorists and violence and destruction of a motor vehicle causing death.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.