Police officers in New York on Wednesday killed an African-American man, who allegedly pointed a metal pipe at them, after responding to emergency calls that said the man was aiming a firearm at pedestrians.
“This was a call of a man pointing what 911 callers and people felt was a gun at people on the street,” Chief of Department Terence Monahan claimed. The man “took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed at the officers,” who in return fired a total of 10 shots, Monahan added.
The victim, identified as 34-year-old Saheed Vassell, was taken to a hospital but pronounced dead, The New York Times reported. His father Eric Vassell told the newspaper that his son had bipolar disorder and had been admitted to the hospital a number of times in recent years after encounters with the police. Eric Vassell said said he had never seen his son act as if he had a gun. “He would just walk around the neighbourhood and help people.”
The officers who shot Vassell were not wearing body cameras, NBC New York reported, but Monahan pointed out surveillance photos from the scene that showed Vassell pointing an object at people walking by beforehand.
This incident comes days after protests erupted in California’s Sacramento city after the autopsy of an African-American man shot dead by police officers in the backyard of his grandparents’ home on March 18 showed that he had been hit eight times in the back.
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