{"id":62254,"date":"2018-04-05T05:31:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T05:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=62254"},"modified":"2018-04-05T05:31:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T05:31:35","slug":"police-fatally-shoot-brooklyn-man-falsely-believing-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/police-fatally-shoot-brooklyn-man-falsely-believing-gun.html","title":{"rendered":"Police Fatally Shoot a Brooklyn Man After Falsely Believing He Had a Gun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police Fatally Shoot a Brooklyn Man After Falsely Believing He Had a Gun<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

New York City police officers shot and killed a black man who was known to be mentally ill on a Brooklyn street corner on Wednesday afternoon after he pointed what the officers believed was a gun at them, the authorities said. The object, however, turned out to be a metal pipe with a knob on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The shooting drew a tense, charged crowd of dozens to the streets of Crown Heights. The Police Department had encountered the man before and classified him as emotionally disturbed, and the shooting raised questions about what the officers at the scene knew about him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Five officers \u2014 three of them in street clothes, two in uniform \u2014 were responding to three 911 calls about a man threatening people with a silver gun near the corner of Montgomery Street and Utica Avenue in Crown Heights, Terence A. Monahan, the chief of department, said at a news conference. A law enforcement official who listened to one of the calls said a woman was frantically reporting that a man was pointing a gun at people.<\/span><\/p>\n

The police found a man who matched descriptions from the 911 callers, Chief Monahan said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe suspect then took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at the approaching officers,\u201d Chief Monahan said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chief Monahan said four of the officers \u2014 the three in street clothes and one uniformed officer \u2014 fired 10 bullets in all. The man, identified by his father as Saheed Vassell, 34, was pronounced dead after being taken to Kings County Medical Center.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an interview at his home late Wednesday night, Mr. Vassell\u2019s father, Eric Vassell, said his son had bipolar disorder and had been admitted to the hospital multiple times in recent years, sometimes after encounters with the police. The younger Mr. Vassell, who was born in Jamaica and came to the United States when he was 6, lived with his family in a Crown Heights apartment and had worked as a welder. He also had a 15-year-old son.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Vassell\u2019s father said he had never seen his son act as if he had a gun.<\/span><\/p>\n

He would \u201cjust walk around the neighborhood and help people,\u201d the father said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Area residents said Mr. Vassell was a familiar figure on the corner and a caring father who begged for money in a nearby subway station and did odd jobs for shopkeepers. He loved to dance and was widely known to be mentally ill. People said he had a penchant for picking things up off the street \u2014 cigarette lighters, empty bottles and other curbside flotsam \u2014 and playing with them like toys.<\/span><\/p>\n

John Fuller, 59, said that he had known Mr. Vassell for years and that local police officers had, too. He echoed a common refrain: The officers should have known him well enough to not simply shoot him to death. \u201cEvery cop in this neighborhood knows him,\u201d Mr. Fuller said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The police said he had been arrested before and said officers had classified him as an emotionally disturbed person in previous encounters.<\/span><\/p>\n

The police released blurry still images from surveillance videos \u2014 though not the videos themselves \u2014 showing a man with an outstretched arm and something in his hand. The police said the images showed him pointing an object that appeared to investigators to be a gun at people on the street and then pointing it in the officers\u2019 direction after they arrived. They also released a picture of what the man turned out to have been holding: a slim, curved silver pipe with a cylindrical knob at the end of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Witnesses said the police officers appeared to fire almost immediately after they got to the corner around 4:45 p.m. Some of the witnesses said they did not hear the officers say anything to the man before firing, while another witness said she heard the officers and the man exchange some words.<\/span><\/p>\n

The police did not answer questions about whether the officers had said anything before firing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dozens were still gathered at the scene late Wednesday and tempers flared hours after the shooting. \u201cMurder!\u201d some bystanders shouted at dozens of police officers behind yellow tape. Other crowd members wept at how this had happened on the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s assassination. Others spoke of wanting to riot. When darkness fell, a group of about 10 protesters arrived carrying Black Lives Matter signs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The killing held echoes of the shooting less than three weeks ago in Sacramento in which the police shot and killed a black man who they believed was pointing a gun at them, but who, it turned out, was actually holding a cellphone.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Wednesday in Brooklyn, Jaccpot Hinds, 40, was walking south on Utica Avenue near Montgomery Street when he saw an unmarked police car pass him and pull across two lanes of traffic near where a man was standing on a street corner. Mr. Hinds said a plainclothes officer got out of the passenger seat of the car and fired at the man several times. The officer appeared to shoot him in the neck, chest and right arm, Mr. Hinds said, and then walked over to the man and prodded his chest with the service weapon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Hinds said that officer, joined by two other plainclothes officers who had been in the car with him, tried to resuscitate the man.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chief Monahan said the officers who fired had not been wearing body cameras. He said that the plainclothes officers were part of an anti-crime unit and that the uniformed officers belonged to the Strategic Response Group, which is assigned to major events and hot spots of crime. The names and races of the police officers were not released.<\/span><\/p>\n

An employee at a beauty salon on the corner, Angie, 52, said she heard the police fire and then saw the man drop. She said the police then fired several more shots before they ran over to the man and handcuffed him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe hear the first shot, the guy went down and then they started firing again,\u201d said Angie, who declined to give her last name.<\/span><\/p>\n

Angie described Mr. Vassell as a quiet man who often sat outside near a barbershop and sometimes worked odd jobs at her beauty salon for a few dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe would just walk and bob his head,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we ask him to do our chores, he\u2019d come and do it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rocky Brown, 45, who knew him for years, said he was a friendly man who was mentally ill.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s harmless,\u201d Mr. Brown said. \u201cA very willing guy, a very nice guy, a good guy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Betty Weaver, 71, said Mr. Vassell would often greet her when she was on her way to church.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another woman, Nicole Williams, said she had given him $2 earlier on Wednesday afternoon. His last words to her, she said, were \u201cThank you, God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/04\/04\/nyregion\/police-shooting-brooklyn-crown-heights.html<\/span><\/p>\n

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