NYPD: Officer shoots 17-year-old reaching for gun in Brooklyn
NEW YORK -- Police are investigating after officers shot a teenager just after 3 p.m. on Thursday in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Police say during a fight between a group of people on Kings Highway and Rockaway Parkway, a female dropped a bag next to a 17-year-old boy, who was on a Razor scooter at the time.
Officers tried stopping him, but he took off.
He eventually emerged from a driveway near East 95th Street and Clarkson Avenue. That's when police say he dropped a purple firearm and tried picking it up.
"He drops the gun. He goes to pick it up. We're talking seconds," Chief of Patrol John Schell said. "Approximately 15 feet apart, face to face, he was given repeated instructions not to pick up the firearm and that's what he did. He went to pick it up, and the officer had to defend himself."
This was the firearm recovered at the scene. pic.twitter.com/1L5byTNAJ0
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) August 17, 2023
Police say he was shot once in the right thigh.
Officers applied a tourniquet to his leg before he was taken to a local hospital. He is expected to survive.
"Without the police, it would be even worse. That's all I gotta say," said one neighbor.
Law enforcement officials say this area is one of 74 summer violence reduction zones across the city where officers patrol in order to reduce crime.
"Zones that have contributed to a 30 percent decrease in shooting violence in the city this summer," Schell said.
Overall numbers are on the decline, but in the 67th Precinct, where this shooting happened, numbers are up slightly from last year with 31 shooting victims this year compared to 30 in 2022 and 26 shooting incidents in 2023 compared to 24 last year.
"We did ask, for years, to put the cops back on the beat," said Dr. Burchell M. Marcus, with the Community Advocate Development Organization.
Thursday night, community advocates were out and about in the neighborhood.
"We try to just keep peace, talk to young people about gun violence," said Al Mathieu, with Developing Righteous United Movements.
"Try to give them some sort of sensibility of wantedness, some kind of love, show them there's a different way," Marcus said.
Officials say the shooting was all captured on body-worn cameras. There were also multiple surveillance cameras in the area, including NYPD cameras at the intersection.