2 WHO SHOT COPS GET LONG TERMS

By all accounts, Detective Arthur Pettus and retired Police Officer Joe Bellone shouldn't have been alive to see their assailants sentenced in Queens Supreme Court yesterday. Miraculously, they were there to tell the court about how they were blasted in a fusillade of 43 bullets by Robert Majors, 24, and Aaron Boone, 29, during a violent payroll heist nearly three years ago. Pettus, 41, an off-duty detective, and Bellone, 47, a retired cop, were working as security guards delivering more than $80,000 in payroll to Positive Promotions at 40-01 168th St. in Flushing on May 9, 1997, when they were ambushed by a heavily armed trio of men, prosecutors said. The masked bandits jumped out out of their van at the corner of 168th St. and Station Road, prosecutors said, and simply unleashed a hail of bullets, hitting Pettus with six rounds and Bellone with 12 in the legs, chest, stomach and back. Yesterday, Bellone and Pettus were able to close a violent chapter in their lives. "It was a complete ambush," said Bellone, a jovial man who shook as he recalled the horrifying day. "My mind and body are full of scars reminding me of what they've done.

" Pettus, who to this day walks with a pronounced limp, said Majors and Boone stole more than money that day. "They stole my right to walk. My wife could no longer feel safe," he said. "They stole my ability to play basketball with my youngest son.

" After a three-week trial, a jury convicted Majors and Boone on two counts attempted murder, two counts of robbery, criminal possession of a weapon on March 10. Queens Supreme Court Justice Steven Fisher said that the defendants were carrying the Chinese version of an AK-47 assault rifle, the civilian version of an M-16 and an Israeli military .

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