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.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/08/10/2010-08-10_cop_shoots_gal_pal_after_text_sparks_fight.html#ixzz0wCcj1j3r