The New York Police Department (NYPD) detective who survived a point-blank range shot in the head last year made an arrest at the same housing project where the shooting happened, having stumbled across wanted criminals.

Sergeant Kevin Brennan, from Garden City, Long Island, was shot in the head last year at the Bushwick Houses, in Brooklyn. On Tuesday the 29-year-old officer returned to the scene of the crime to do a walk-through of January 31, 2012’s events with prosecutors preparing to take the case against the alleged shooter, Luis (Baby) Ortiz, to trial.

Ortiz, the alleged shooter, who is associated with the Latin Kings gang, shot Brennan at point-black in the head. The NYPD cop suffered vision damage and injuries to his spinal cord.

Having completed the walk-through on Tuesday, Brennan and his old partner, Michael Burbridge, were driving away from 24 Humboldt Street. Burbridge spotted two men who were wanted for a home invasion. The duo stopped and asked the men to get up against the fence.

Brennan told Newsday “I felt the butt end of firearm in his waist and kind of put him in a nelson and held him.

"Officer Burbridge helped me and we were able to cuff him up."

Brennan told the New York Daily News, “It was like old times again...It was fun.”

What makes the arrest even more amazing is that the Irish American cop is still undergoing physiotherapy having survived a bullet to the head just 16 months ago.

Now a detective in the intelligence division, Brennan was promoted soon after the shooting.

Brennan told Newsday that during his career he has recovered about 100 firearms. Burbridge (31) estimated that during his 8.5 year career he had recovered about 120.

On Tuesday Brennan recovered a 9mm handgun from Joseph Roman (17) of Humboldt Street, Brooklyn. Roman and Tyrrell Woods (23), both from Staten Island, were charged with robbery and criminal use of a firearm in the home-invasion case.