A mentally ill man armed with a large knife refused numerous commands to drop his weapon and was shot to death by NYPD cops when he lunged at them on a Queens street Monday morning, police and witnesses said.
The confrontation, captured on police body-worn cameras, sparked off about 6:20 a.m. in the middle of the intersection at 30th Ave. and 31st St. in Astoria, cops said.
Cops rushed the scene after numerous 911 calls described a 61-year-old man armed with a large knife and acting erratically. One caller believed the suspect was going to attack someone, NYPD Chief of Department John Chell said.
Officers tried to contain the suspect, Chell said, repeatedly commanding him to drop the knife.
The suspect over the course of 56 seconds refused to drop his 14-inch-long knife and that more than one officer fired a Taser at the suspect but were unable to subdue him, Chell said.
When the suspect then made a move toward the officers, knife still in hand, police “were forced to defend themselves,” Chell said.
Three officers fired, a police source said, striking the suspect.
“The guy was waving a knife,” said a 62-year-old witness who gave his name only as Tony. “They tased him … But the Taser didn’t work. … The guy was really threatening.””
“They told him to drop the knife many times … I think for at least a good minute they were telling him to drop the knife,” he added. “He wouldn’t stop. He kept going toward them. He wasn’t running, but he was walking … He wouldn’t drop the knife. And then the last thing I saw before I ran away, he start charging at the cops … I saw the cops taking the guns out.”
Tony said the suspect wasn’t someone he recognized from the neighborhood.
“Nobody has seen him [before],” Tony said. “I feel sorry for him that happened, but he looked very aggressive with the knife.”
The suspect was rushed by medics to Elmhurst Hospital Center but could not be saved. His name was not immediately released.
The suspect had a bag of cans with him and may have been homeless, police said.
The officers were not hurt but were taken to Mount Sinai Queens to be treated for ringing in their ears.
The suspect has a history of mental illness, with cops twice before responding to incidents in which he was in distress, police said.
Chell said the goal when dealing with mentally ill suspects “is to slow down and deescalate the situation.”
“The ultimate goal is getting the person the help they need,” he added. “However, during fast-moving and hectic situations with an armed person, we are forced to defend ourselves.”
Andre Johnson, 61, was outside the grocery store where he works as an assistant manager when he heard shots ring out in fast succession.
“It was ‘boom, boom,’ one after the other,” he said, adding that subway riders ran out of a nearby station in a panic.
“They surrounded him,” he said of the man after he was shot by cops. “He was laying down. After that the cops came with the emergency tape, [shouting] ‘Get back!'”
The incident is the seventh time this year in which NYPD cops shot an armed suspect.
Three of the suspects were armed with a knife, most recently Longqian Chen, 49, who attacked his daughter and three nieces with a meat cleaver inside the family’s apartment in Bensonhurst on April 6. Chen almost attacked officers, police said, but they shot and wounded him.
Originally Published:
