NYC doorbell cam video shows cops shoot at man who'd called 911
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MOTT HAVEN, the Bronx (PIX11) -- Doorbell cam video and other evidence shows how police in New York City shot and injured a man who'd called them to report a crime. The man was holding a kitchen knife in his hand when an officer fired on him, according to the NYPD, which is investigating what happened.
Video from a Ring doorbell camera on the front door of a first-floor apartment where the incident happened, at 335 East 148th St. in the Bronx, shows two officers responding to a call at 5:43 p.m. Sunday.
The officers entered the building and then went up to the second floor, where the 911 call had come from. The man wasn't home because, according to police, he was in a courtyard on the side of the building. He was there, investigators said, looking for a man he'd called 911 about. The 911 call indicated that someone was trying to steal an air conditioner. The 911 caller was apparently trying to pursue the air conditioner thief with a knife, according to police.
The 911 caller left the side courtyard and entered a first-floor side entrance to his building. That entrance is around a corner from where the two responding cops had just come down from the second floor.
The Ring camera video and audio capture just how consequential the next few seconds were. On the video, the man says something, apparently in Spanish, to officers, who then realize that he's carrying a knife, according to investigators.
Rohan Griffith, the NYPD chief of force investigations, said that "one officer gave the male a verbal command, 'Wait, wait, wait.'" The command is audible on the Ring camera.
Chief Griffith continued the account, in a briefing on Sunday night, hours after the incident. "The man proceeds to swiftly approach the officer, still with the knife in his right hand," the chief said.
The image of the knife that the NYPD released shows a kitchen knife that police said could be used against officers potentially, and when the man kept approaching the two officers, one of them opened fire.
"I heard two gunshots, 'Pow! Pow!'" said David Bermudez, who was visiting his father's apartment in the building on Sunday evening when the shots rang out. Bermudez is visible on the Ring camera video, passing by the injured man five minutes after the shooting.
Bermudez was among a variety of people from the building who said that a language barrier may have played a factor in the incident, with officers speaking only English to people they encounter, generally.
"It's hard to speak to them in English," Bermudez said, "because they don't know English. They know Spanish."
Juan Rivera, another building resident, who said he'd lived there 56 years, said that he was surprised at the large NYPD response in the wake of the shooting. Rivera's Ring camera showed dozens of officers and supervisors showing up in the building, as is NYPD protocol following an officer-involved shooting.
Rivera was among a number of people in the building who said that the shooting, while tragic, appeared to be with justification.
"They did a good job," Rivera said, referring to the police who'd responded to the scene, adding that he was relieved that the outcome wasn't worse.
"They didn't kill nobody," Rivera said. "The guy got hurt."
The shooting victim is reported to be stable and in treatment for a gunshot wound to the torso at Lincoln Hospital. It's located just 1.5 blocks from the building where the man, whose identity has not been released, was shot.