Police fatally shot a man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn Wednesday afternoon.
Sources say police were responding to reports of a black man with a gun around 4:45 pm when responding officers encountered the suspect, who sources say was holding a metal object near the corner of Montgomery and Utica Avenues in Crown Heights.
Officers opened fire and struck the man at least once in the abdomen. He was rushed to NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County where he was pronounced dead.
It wasn’t immediately known if any officers were injured in the encounter.
No gun was found at the scene as the shooting remains under investigation. Angry crowds have gathered at the scene and are loudly denouncing the police, calling them “murderers.”
via NBC New York
A witness at the scene said that three officers in an SUV pulled up to the scene about the time of the shooting and blocked off traffic. He said an officer that got out of a passengers side door and fired nine times.
“It’s almost like they did a hit,” the witness said. “They didn’t say ‘freeze,’ they didn’t say ‘put your hands up,’ they didn’t say ‘stop for a minute.’ They just started shooting.
In a press conference, NYPD Officials confirmed that a total of 10 rounds were fired at the man, and he was holding a metal pipe, not a gun. They also said they received multiple calls about the man, claiming that he was holding “an object that appears to be a gun.”
Twitter Updates
Shooting in #CrownHeights – Lord, please heal our community https://t.co/0vOknJwZWf
— Stephen Stallard (@scstallard) April 5, 2018
This is the object the man who was shot by police in Crown Heights was holding. Police say they got several calls of a man holding a gun, and that this object resembled a silver firearm that the man pointed at the cops. The latest at: https://t.co/ZuE2nDyPYw pic.twitter.com/GoH0K1Ft6R
— Hannah Kliger (@HannahKliger) April 5, 2018
#breakingnews press conference just now we learned more about Crown Heights shooting: 3 officers from anti-crime and 1 officer from SRG fired a combined 10 shots striking the suspect. The suspect had a metal pipe with some kind of knob. See next. pic.twitter.com/yugDQ0OWXh
— Citywide 911 News (@Citywide911) April 4, 2018