afterword by Patrick H. Moore
In what some may view as unnecessary or gratuitous shootings, two inexperienced NYPD police officers shot and wounded two innocent bystanders while firing at a deranged individual on Saturday evening who was running around Times Square in erratic fashion and darting in-and-out of traffic. At one point, the man actually lay down in the middle of a crowded intersection as if hoping to be run over by the oncoming traffic.
Michael Schwartz and Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times write:
Confronted by an agitated man who at one point lay down in the middle of a crowded intersection in Times Square, two police officers fired shots late Saturday evening at the man, striking two bystanders instead, the authorities said.
The bystanders, two women from Manhattan, happened to be walking in the area when the officers opened fire, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at a news conference at Bellevue Hospital Center early Sunday morning.
A bullet hit one woman, 54, in the leg, fracturing her tibia and fibula, Mr. Kelly said. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where she was expected to undergo surgery. The other woman, 35, suffered a graze wound to the buttock. She was treated at Roosevelt Hospital and was in the process of being released, Mr. Kelly said.
Both women were shot on the northeast corner of 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue. Neither woman was identified.
The agitated man is in police custody at Bellevue. His identity has apparently not yet been disclosed. According to Police Commissioner Kelly, the man is 35 years old and from New York.
According to witnesses, the man was actually struck by several cars. The extent of his injuries is unclear.
In a video of the episode captured by a witness on his cellphone, the man is seen running erratically around the intersection as officers try to corral him out of the street.
“He was just wandering, running away from the cop,” said a witness who described himself as a retired police officer and did not want to be named. “He tried to run and ended up getting hit by three different cars.”
At the news conference, however, Commissioner Kelly said the man had not been hit by any cars.
“It appeared that he wanted to be struck by cars,” said Kelly.
In fairness to the police officers, it certainly does not appear that their first inclination was to start shooting. However, when the man put his hand in his pants, withdrew it and mimicked shooting at the officers, two relatively new men on the force responded by opening fire, even though the man’s hand was empty. One officer fired one shot, and the other fired two shots, according to Commissioner Kelly. All three shots went awry and two of them struck the bystanders. At some point thereafter, the man was surrounded by officers, shocked with a Taser, and taken into custody.
The man was later wheeled by police into an ambulance, conscious and sitting upright, apparently handcuffed and dressed in a green sweater.
Commissioner Kelly stated that one of the officers who fired shots had been with the Police Department for one- and-a-half years. The other had three years of experience, but neither had been involved in any shootings before Saturday night.
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This incident demonstrates how truly difficult police work can be. When the suspect pretended to pull out a gun and mimicked shooting at the officers, the inexperienced officers clearly thought shooting at him was the proper choice. Fortunately, only one of the bystanders was badly hurt. It is also fortunate that cooler heads prevailed and the man was taken into custody without any further damage to the citizenry.