NYPD: Man Fatally Shot By Police After Lunging At Officers With Knife
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The NYPD says officers shot and killed a man armed with a knife late Sunday night in the Bronx.
The shooting happened shortly before 11 p.m. at the Hill House in the Morris Heights section.
Police said officers were responding to 911 calls about harassment in a fourth floor apartment when they encountered a 32-year-old man armed with a knife and stick.
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After being shocked with a Taser, the suspect allegedly grabbed the knife and lunged at the officers. That's when police shot him in the torso.
"The Taser hit him, he went down. But once you stop hitting the charge on the Taser, the possibility of jumping back up – it can happen," said NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan.
The 32-year-old was pronounced dead at Bronx Lebanon Hospital. The officers were sent to Jacobi Medical Center for observation.
One man told CBS2's Aundrea Cline-Thomas he lived next door to the suspect and knew he was struggling with some problems.
"He was suffering from mental illness and he was crying out for help," he said. "The people in the building, the management, tried to do all they could do. The system is just slow."
The Hill Houses serves people who are in addiction recovery or transition, according to online descriptions.
"It was not a call for an emotionally disturbed person. It was a call for a person causing a disturbance in the building, banging on the super's door with a large stick, threatening the security and threatening other members in the building with the stick, " said Chief of Department Terence Monahan.
Police said the knife and stick were recovered at the scene.
"This guy's charging at (the officers) with a knife in one hand, a stick in the other, screaming at them in a confined space," Monahan said. "Again, I say this quite often, officers have to make a decision in a matter of seconds, and that's what happened here. It escalated very quickly."
The shooting is under investigation.