Ekeythia Dunston (right) shot Erica LeGall (left) during a fight that was sparked by a text message.
An off-duty cop fired two rounds into her girlfriend early Monday after a suspicious text message sparked an all-out battle between the pair, police sources said.
Ekeythia Dunston, 32, and her 42-year-old partner, Erica LeGall, had returned to their Harlem home from a night on a Circle Line boat tour when Dunston - a police officer for eight years - got a text message from another woman about 3:15 a.m., the sources said.
An argument soon erupted between them, as their two sons - Jayleen, 7, who is LeGall's, and Daichoi, 13, who is Dunston's - were asleep in their room, sources and witnesses said.
"I heard them arguing," said neighbor Connie Sedgewick, 41. "It sounded like it was over another woman."
LeGall grabbed a clothes iron and whacked Dunston across her skull, leaving a "tennis-ball-sized welt" on her head, a source said.
Then Dunston grabbed her pistol.
Lisa Evans, 41, whose apartment is below the couple's, said she heard shouts: "No! No! No! Don't shoot!"
Dunston squeezed off two shots, striking her gal pal once in the thigh and once in her shoulder, cops said. The boys and their 32-year-old baby-sitter were unharmed in the dispute, police said.
"It's horrible," said Dunston's mother, Ekeythia, 51. "It's been a fog on me all day. I hope everyone's okay."
LeGall was taken to Harlem Hospital, where she was in critical but stable condition. She was charged with assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
Dunston, who is works out of the 108th Precinct in Long Island City, was treated for her head injury at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia.
She was arrested and charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child. She was suspended without pay. The city's Administration for Children's Services took the boys away, the elder Dunston said.
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