Police fatally shoot knife-wielding man in Midtown Manhattan
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
New York police fatally shot a man who the New York Police Department said came at officers with a knife during the early-morning rush in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday.
A police bullet also grazed a woman, who was being treated at Bellevue Hospital, according to The New York Daily News.
The man was killed at the corner of 49th Street and Eighth Avenue.
"I heard three shots," Abraham Obaretin, a local newspaper vendor, told DNAinfo. "Boom, boom, boom. One after another. Everybody started running up Eighth Avenue. It was so scary."
The police were called to the scene at about 8:20 a.m., after the man entered a grocery store at the corner of 49th Street and Eighth Avenue and became belligerent, according to the NYPD.
The man struggled with the police and brandished a knife after falling to the ground, the NYPD said. The officers ordered the man to drop the knife, but, according to the NYPD, the man continued to approach the police with the knife in his hand, at which point the police fired. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
"The cop started crying immediately," a witness told DNAinfo. "You could tell he was remorseful for what he had done."
The NYPD has closed Eighth Avenue between 42nd Street and 49th Street.
Warning: The photos below are graphic:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/732941780686082048
The suspect struggled with an officer, falling to the ground. As the suspect got back up he displayed a knife pic.twitter.com/PmuS9l5zS1
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/732942363514015746
Officers ordered the suspect to drop the knife but he continued to approach them with the knife in his hand. Officers then fired at suspect
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/732917157676343296
A look at the scene in midtown. Shooting investigation closes 49th/8th #nbc4ny pic.twitter.com/FRwkTMHVi8
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/732921713109946368
One dead in NYPD-involved shooting in Midtown Manhattan, at 49th St & 8th Ave pic.twitter.com/jxpU6GsEgo