The NYPD says a gunman ambushed and killed an officer in what the commissioner called a "clear assassination" before backup arrived and shot the attacker dead.

NYPD Sgt. Brendan Ryan says the victim, 48-year-old Miosotis Familia, died at a hospital early Wednesday. She had a gunshot wound to the head after the attacker fired into her vehicle through a window, police say.

Familia had been on the force for 12 years and was a mother of three.

Police say other officers shot and killed the suspect, who was brandishing a revolver. A stray bullet also struck another person, believed to be a bystander, who is in stable condition.

The attack happened in the Bronx's Fordham Heights neighborhood around 12:30 a.m., while Familia was sitting in her vehicle, a mobile command unit. She and her partner had been stationed there after a rash of crimes in the neighborhood, including a taxi shooting in March that left three people hurt on the Grand Concourse.

Recordings of the radio call show Familia's partner screaming for backup and an ambulance.

Other officers spotted the suspect, 34-year-old Alexander Bonds, running about a block from the scene of the ambush, police say. He died in a gunfight with those officers.

Bonds had a criminal record including six prior arrests. He was on parole for a 2014 robbery in Syracuse, New York. Another of his arrests came for assaulting a police officer with brass knuckles in 2001.

Police say Bonds also had posted an anti-police video on his Facebook page last September, in which he complained about police officers killing and abusing people. In the video, he ominously warned that if police didn't leave him alone, "We gonna do something."

Familia's slaying is reminiscent of the 2014 shooting deaths of NYPD Detectives Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, who were similarly gunned down as they sat in a marked police car in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.

The NYPD this year announced it would buy ballistic windows for police vehicles.

Police say the department has outfitted more than 2,000 vehicles with ballistic protection for their doors. Currently, 151 vehicles have ballistic protection for windows, with more expected to be retrofitted.

Wednesday evening, Tony Herbert and other community activists organized a vigil in Familia's honor. With members of her family present, activists denounced gun violence as well as attacks on police officers.

"It's a sad commentary, because not only are the people in our streets dying, the very people that are here to protect us are the ones dying," Herbert told the gathered mourners.