NYPD officers were involved in three shootings in three boroughs in less than seven hours on Thursday, the latest one wounding a man who was said to be waving a gun near a crowd of people at a Bronx train station, according to police.
Officers were called to the scene at the elevated subway station at West 238th Street and Broadway in the Kingsbridge neighborhood just before 8 p.m. Thursday, the NYPD said at a press conference. When police arrived, witnesses at the station pointed to the man who was said to be showing a gun.
Officers went up to the man and told him to drop the weapon, which he did not do, police said. Instead, he started walking south on a catwalk running adjacent to the subway tracks, toward the next station at 231st Street.
Some officers followed the man on the walkway, continuing to tell him to drop the gun — which he allegedly still refused to do, sometimes pointing the weapon at officers. Another group of officers started approaching him from the other direction as he got closer to the next train station, according to police.
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As he pointed the weapon one more time, an officer fired one shot, the NYPD said. The man was struck in the left hand, forcing him to drop the gun.
Officers on the catwalk secured the weapon and rendered aid to the man, who has not yet been identified, but police said they were familiar with him. He was taken to the hospital where he is expected to survive.
Police said that the weapon (pictured below) was not a real gun, but an imitation or air pistol that looks very similar to a real firearm.
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An investigation is ongoing.
Before the incident, there were two other police shootings in NYC earlier in the day. First, in Brooklyn, a 78-year-old man was shot and killed by officers responding to a burglary call in the middle of the afternoon on Lewis Avenue in Bed-Stuy, police said.
Just a couple of hours later, a man who was acting erratically while armed with a knife outside a Queens church was shot by NYPD officers after he stabbed a security guard, according to police.
