Brooklyn, NY – A retired New York Police Department lieutenant was pistol-whipped and slashed in the face by armed robbers, who then brutally raped his wife during a home invasion early Monday morning.

The incident began at approximately 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 8, when three assailants forced their way into the 72-year-old retired lieutenant’s Marine Park residence, the New York Daily News reported.

According to police, the trio threatened the couple and demanded that they hand over their jewelry and cash, the New York Post reported.

“If you say anything, you’re dead,” the attackers told them, according to police.

When the lieutenant refused, they hit him in the head and slashed his face with a box cutter.

They then bound his 71-year-old wife with duct tape and sexually assaulted her.

Police said that the couple’s 47-year-old son was also inside the residence at the time of the attack.

The suspects made off with the lieutenant’s gun and blue 2012 Honda Civic, according to WPIX.

The couple was transported to a local hospital for treatment, and their conditions have not been released.

At approximately 10:15 p.m. that night, a license plate reader located the stolen Civic traveling through the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel, the New York Post reported.

Two of the suspects – 20-year-old Lance Jyriken and 25-year-old Shirnel Sobers – were subsequently arrested following a pursuit from Lower Manhattan to the Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn, the New York Daily News reported.

Investigators said that Jyriken and Shirnel are homeless.

Both have been charged with attempted murder, criminal possession of a weapon, assault, grand larceny, and burglary, WPIX reported.

A third suspect, who police said is responsible for sexually assaulting the lieutenant’s wife, was still at large, according to the New York Daily News.

Police described him as being six feet tall, with a thin-to-medium stature, the New York Post reported.

The lieutenant’s firearm has not been recovered.

According to police, the couple’s home was also burglarized in July, the New York Daily News reported.

The lieutenant and his wife were not injured during the earlier incident, according to WINS.

Police sources told the New York Daily News that investigators are looking into the possibility that the attack was linked to debts owed by the lieutenant’s 47-year-old son, who is being treated as a witness.

Neighbors said the son is an addict, and that he suffers from mental illness.

“His son walks up and down the street at 3 a.m. talking to himself,” the neighbor, who wouldn’t give his name, told the New York Daily News. “He’s a drug addict on pills. He’s in and out of rehab all the time.”

“You’d see him running down the street, partially clothed, screaming. He should be institutionalized,” another neighbor told the news outlet. “He was away for months, and he shows up out of the blue, then all of this stuff starts happening.”

The lieutenant’s son was released from a rehabilitation facility several weeks ago, and showed up in the neighborhood, the neighbors said.

The son was arrested twice in September in Manhattan for criminal trespass and drug possession, the New York Daily News reported.

Approximately six years ago, his elderly mother called police after he repeatedly came to their home and banged on their door.

“It’s been going on for a while,” a neighbor told WPIX. “Police are here often, fire department’s here often, taking him in an ambulance and all those things.”