What to Know
- An emotionally disturbed man was shot and killed in a Brooklyn apartment Monday, the NYPD says.
- Police were responding to a 911 call from his mother, who reported her son was acting erratically
- The man advanced on police with a large carving knife; a stun gun was deployed to no avail. Another cop shot the man in the chest.
An emotionally disturbed man brandishing a knife was shot and killed by police in his Brooklyn apartment, officials say.
Police said 32-year-old Dwayne Jeune's mother called 911 and said he was acting erratically. When they arrived at the fifth-floor apartment on New York Avenue in Flatbush Gardens shortly after noon, she let them inside their home on the fifth floor.
Chief of Patrol Terence Monahan said Jeune lunged at four officers with a "large carving knife." One officer fired a stun gun, hitting Jeune once in the arm and once in the chest, but Jeune was "able to fight through it and keep on moving forward," Monahan said.
He then shoved an officer to the ground, police sources say, and was hovering over an officer with the knife when another second officer shot him in the chest.
He died at the scene.
Monahan says the incident unfolded "in seconds."
When the mother called 911, she did not say if Jeune was acting violent or if he had a weapon, police said.
A neighbor told News 4 that Jeune was known in the community and struggled with mental issues but was never violent.
Local
Police say it's unclear when he picked up the knife.
Councilman Jumaane Williams said in a statement that he's "concerned" about the shooting death, "in particular, whether protocols were followed for dealing with a call for an emotionally disturbed person."
"This is happening very often. I know that they're supposed to wait for a special team. I want to know if that team was waited for, and if it wasn't, why not?" Williams told News 4 New York.
Williams met with the family Monday night. He also talked with the family next door — one of the bullets came flying through their dining room wall. Lasaunti Newell, 14, was asleep at the time.
"It was more of like a loud boom," Williams said. "I was pretty scared when I called my mom. I actually started crying."
Charmaine Goodin, who also lives next door, said Jeune was easygoing.
"He was really quiet. He was no threat to me or to anybody from what I could see," she said.
The deadly shooting last fall of a 66-year-old woman in her Bronx apartment sparked conversation around police protocol when dealing with mentally ill individuals. Deborah Danner had schizophrenia; the NYPD sergeant who fired two shots, killing her, was charged in January with murder.
