A Brooklyn cop shot and wounded a career criminal who was reaching into his waistband after he had just tried to rob another man early Tuesday morning, police said.
Andre Raphael, 23, tried to stick-up a man at Malcolm X Blvd. and Gates Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant just after 4:15 a.m., police said.
The victim managed to flee and flagged down a patrol car from the 81st Precinct, telling the officers he believed the robber was armed, cops said.
A short time later, cops confronted Raphael near Gates Ave.
An officer yelled for Raphael to "get down," police said.
But Raphael instead reached into the waistband of his pants.
The officer, an eight-year veteran, fired once and the bullet tore through both of Raphael's legs, police said.
He was in stable condition at Kings County Hospital.
Police didn't find a gun on Raphael, but a 9-mm. pistol was recovered from a nearby sewer.
Three twists of cocaine were found in Raphael's waistband, along with five rocks of crack in his rectum.
Raphael has 26 previous arrests, 16 of them sealed. He was last arrested, for menacing, on May 3. The case is pending.
Charges against him in yesterday's incident were pending.
The officer who fired tested negative for alcohol.