OFFICER LOSES GALLANT FIGHT

DIES FIVE DAYS AFTER BEING HIT IN WILD SHOOTOUT




July 15, 2007 -- Officer Russel Timoshenko, who was shot in the face Monday while confronting a trio of vicious thugs in Brooklyn, ended his brave battle for life yesterday afternoon.
"Officer Timoshenko made the ultimate sacrifice with unflinching bravery and dedication to duty," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said outside Kings County Hospital last night.
His doctor, Robert Kurtz, struggled to hold back tears as he told reporters that the NYPD lawman died while on life support at 4:14 p.m.
In the dramatic final moment of Timoshenko's life, a line of nearly 150 fellow officers filed past him to pay their respects. His devastated family huddled near by.
Friends outside the hospital room could hear his heartbroken mother muttering "god help, god help" between her gut-wrenching sobs.
"People were kissing his hands and his feet," said George Kallaur, an archpriest at the Russian Orthodox Church of the New Martyrs and the Confessors of Russia in Bensonhurst.