Photo: Bryan Smith for NewsPolice Commissioner Raymond Kelly congratulates Ricardo Ramirez and Robert Salerno. Two cops were promoted to detective Friday - even as they recovered from on-duty gunshot wounds.
Officer Robert Salerno, 26, who has returned to duty in the 47th Precinct, was shot in March 2010. He suffered serious internal injuries in the Bronx shootout.
Salerno still has some nerve damage in his right leg, but vowed that it wouldn't slow him down.
"It's nothing I can't overcome," he said from Police Headquarters.
Officer Richard Ramirez, 29, was told he'd spend the rest of his life unable to walk normally, but he, too, has made tremendous progress since getting shot in October. Police said the shooter was a Brooklyn teen whom Ramirez stopped for riding his bike on the wrong side of the street.
Ramirez hopes to return to work soon.
"The doctors originally said I wasn't going to be able to walk on my own, that I was going to drag my leg," Ramirez said. "[But] I'm no longer walking with a cane. I'm walking on my own."
Also promoted to detective was a cop, Carlos Olmedo, who spent almost two weeks in a coma after he was struck by a motorcycle while chasing car thieves in Brooklyn. It's not clear if Olmedo, 32, will return to active duty.