Police fatally shot a man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn Wednesday afternoon.
Sources say police were responding to reports of a 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.
“All you saw was the torch coming out of the gun,” he said. “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.”
“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.”
This story is developing. Please refresh for updates.