Brooklyn police shooting: Officers kill fleeing gunman in hail of bullets, NYPD says

Police officers shot and killed an armed man in Brooklyn in the early hours of Sunday as he tried to evade capture, possibly inadvertently wounding a bystander in the process, authorities said.

According to NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, there were two police officers and a sergeant 67th District They were patrolling East Flatbush in a marked police vehicle around 1:18 a.m. May 12 when they came across two men involved in an argument at 52nd Street and Church Avenue.

Maddrey explained that one of the combatants, a 32-year-old man, allegedly pointed a firearm at the other man – prompting officers on patrol to intervene.

The sergeant yelled “Gun!” as responding officers shouted at the 32-year-old to drop the weapon. However, police said he did not heed the calls and tried to escape.

“The officers leave the vehicle. They approached the men and as they approached, the man with the gun began running east on Church Avenue,” Chief Maddrey said.

According to law enforcement, things came to a head near a deli at 5211 Church Ave. as the shooter began running from the sidewalk into the street.

“One of the officers fired his Taser, the Taser briefly stunned the man. “The man got back up and still had the gun in his hand,” Chief Maddrey continued. “He runs back onto the sidewalk and back toward 52nd Street. The officers give the man further commands to drop the weapon and fire their weapons.”

Police reportedly fired at least 15 shots, with at least one shot causing the man to collapse. The NYPD did not say how many times the man was shot.

Responding officers reportedly attempted to perform CPR before emergency medical services arrived. Paramedics took the wounded man to Kings County Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Ninety minutes after the fatal police shooting, authorities learned that another person had gone to a nearby hospital with a graze wound. The NYPD did not provide any information about where on the man’s body he was hit. Authorities are now investigating whether he was hit by one of the police shots.

The case was submitted to the NYPD Force Investigation Division, which investigates all police shootings and other uses of force.