Bronx police officers were captured on video shooting a man armed with a .9 mm semi-automatic pistol this weekend during an incident captured on a witness’ cell phone.
The wounded man, shown on video being shot twice at close range as he was laying on the ground, underwent surgery late Sunday.
It happened July 7 at around 7 p.m. after officers from the 44th Precinct approached the suspect, in his 50s, after he’d allegedly broken a right rear window of a BMW parked near Summit Avenue, police said.
The suspect said he locked his keys in his car and had been trying to get inside of it, witness 29-year-old Patrice Turner said.
However, the man only had keys that belonged to another car.
“The officers began to put the individual under arrest. A struggle ensued,” NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said.
The woman who recorded video of the confrontation, Mercedes Escoto, stated the man was resisting arrest prior to cops wrestling him to the ground.
Her video shows two officers struggling with the man, who repeatedly tells the officers he knows his rights.
“I know my rights! I know my rights!” he repeats.
“It’s my vehicle; it’s my vehicle,” the suspect tells officers before they punch him twice as he lay on the ground.
As a struggle ensued, the man wound up on his back while bother officers attempted to handcuff and apprehend him.
Body cameras were also rolling.
“From the camera, you can hear the suspect say, ‘I have a gun, expletive die,'” Monahan said.
That’s when one of the officers pulls his sidearm and shoots the suspect twice.
“F–k, bro. What’s wrong with you, man?” the man says after being shot.
Monahan stated body cam videos give a better view of what really happened.
“If you’re not standing there, you don’t see the suspect is armed with a gun, a .9 mm,” the chief said.
“He says quite clearly on the tape, ‘I have a gun, die.'”
In a separate video, the man can be seen slumped up against a parked car when an officer standing over him is pulled back by another officer.
“Y’all pulled out your weapon on that man, bro,” an onlooker says.
“I heard two shots. And the cop said, ‘I don’t know what I just did. I don’t know what I just did,'” another witness recalled, saying the frustrated officer slammed his radio to the ground.
“His partner just shut him up, like ‘Don’t talk, don’t speak, don’t say anything,'” the witness recalled, adding the officer put his hand over his mouth.
The man was transported to a hospital for medical treatment and is reportedly in stable condition, according to the New York Daily News.
