Boston Police Commissioner William Evans speaks about today's incident, while Boston Mayor Martin Walsh looks on. Photo by Jennifer Smith

Kurt Stokinger, the decorated Boston Police officer who was shot in the leg last Friday morning while attempting to arrest a suspected drug dealer in Dorchester, is continuing to “recover from his injuries,” Police Commissioner William Evans said on Monday. “All indications are positive and we can continue to pray for him,” Evans added.

Stokinger, a nine-year veteran of the force and a plainclothes member of the Boston Police Drug Control Unit in Mattapan, has since been discharged in stable condition, police said.

Officials gave the following account of what happened near Mt. Bowdoin Terrace in the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood that morning:

A week ago Tuesday, officers spotted a drug sale taking place and moved in to confront the participants. The seller, later identified as Headley, fled the scene in a black Acura and the buyer admitted to buying crack cocaine from him.

Three days later, on Friday morning, drug control officers saw Headley driving the same black Acura along Mt. Bowdoin Terrace and moved to box him in with their unmarked cruisers. As the officers approached Headley’s car on foot, guns holstered, Headley leapt from his the vehicle and, “unprovoked,” began firing.

One of the bullets struck Stokinger in the left leg. He returned fire, but did not hit Headley, who bolted through a vacant lot toward Geneva Avenue. Police and civilians rushed to help Stokinger bind a tourniquet around his leg, which was bleeding heavily.

An officer approaching the scene in a cruiser saw Headley dash into a Geneva Avenue driveway. The officer drew his firearm and ordered Headley to stop, which he did not do. The officer continued the chase on foot, tackled Headley, and took him into custody with the help of other officers with no further gunfire.

“I want to commend my officers,” Evans said. “I think we were fortunate here that we don’t have an of cer who suffered a more serious injury.”

Police recovered from Headley’s car a .40 caliber Glock semiautomatic handgun with an obliterated serial number and a large-capacity magazine. According to the district attorney’s office, the weapon was still loaded with seven rounds in the magazine and an additional round jammed in the chamber, which had prevented further shots.

The restraint with which the officers acted was laudable, Mayor Martin Walsh said outside Boston Medical Center early Friday afternoon as Stokinger, a father of two, was being treated inside.

“I commend the men and women of the Boston Police Department for their incredible restraint in the situation,” Walsh said, calling the force “the best in the nation.”

Gun violence has been at the top of the city’s priority list, especially in recent days with Walsh and Evans traveling to the White House for separate gun violence-related events and announcements. Evans spoke at a state hearing on the dangers posed by replica rearms last Tuesday morning.

Even as homicides decline – 38 in 2015 – the progress is not enough, Walsh said. “We have too many guns on the street.” Though Boston police confiscated 800 guns this past year and 1,000 the year before, “we still have too many guns, and we’re not going to tolerate anyone going after the Boston Police Department,” Walsh said.

At his arraignment on Monday, Headley was held on $1 million bail for attempted murder and gun charges and $500,000 for distribution of cocaine for a Jan. 5 arrest, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. Headley reportedly shouted inside Dorchester Municipal Court that police had been trying to “assassinate” him.

Headley is well known to the police, having served a five-year prison stretch before being released on probation last April.

[Editor's note: This article was updated online March 17, 2015 to reflect the version published on Jan. 14, 2016 which identified the officer.]