An NYPD officer was shot while sitting in a marked police vehicle on Saturday night in what the police commissioner is calling an “assassination attempt.” The officer who was shot, described by the New York Post as an eight-year veteran of the force, was sitting with his partner in an NYPD van when a man walked up and asked for directions. The officers then noticed the man had pulled out a gun and tried to speed away but the suspect still managed to fire through the window, the Post reports, citing law enforcement sources. The officer was hit in the neck and chin but was described as conscious and alert and is expected to survive. “It is a miracle we are not here under worse circumstances,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said in a late-night press conference. “He was shot right in the chin. He is lucky to be alive,” he said, calling the shooting “an attempt to assassinate police officers.” Police are still searching for the gunman, who fled on foot after the alleged ambush.