In Cooper v. City of New York (81 NY2d 584 [1993]), the court once again reiterated its bar against common law negligence claims by police officers against their municipal employers for injuries sustained while "performing a function endowed with the special risks inherent in the duties of a police officer (id. at 589). The court again rationalized its holding, noting that individuals who elect to join the uniformed services do so with knowledge of the dangers attendant upon those occupations and the distinct possibility that they might be hurt in the course of their employment. It is precisely because being a police officer is so hazardous that the Legislature has provided for added benefits to those injured in the line of duty (id. at 590.) The court - rejecting an exception which would allow suit against a municipality for injury to an officer caused by acts of negligence separate and distinct from the circumstances requiring a police officer's presence at the scene of an accident - made clear while common law claims could not be asserted when the injuries were precipitated by "the particular dangers which police officers are expected to assume as part of their duties," even if there existed a "degree of separation between the negligent act directly causing the injury and the act which occasioned the police officer's services" (id. at 590), common law claims could lie for injuries "sustained by police officers as a result of [the] negligence of their fellow officers during the performance of their work which are wholly unrelated to the assumed risks of police duty (id. at 591-592).