By Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — A Bronx man had just slashed his girlfriend and was threatening to cut his mother’s throat when a police officer fatally shot him from five feet away, New York Police Department brass said Saturday.
“These officers were met with a chaotic, fast moving situation, but they had great composure,” NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said at a press conference outside the shooting scene, an apartment building in Bedford Park.
Chell said the officers’ actions “saved the life” of the knife-wielding man’s mother. Sources said she is 45 or 46 years old.
A 911 call summoned two 52nd Precinct officers to the 13th-floor apartment at about 11:15 a.m. Saturday.
As the officers arrived, a 19-year-old woman said to be the knife-wielding man’s girlfriend “came screaming out of the apartment with a slice wound to her face,” Chell said.
The officers stepped into the apartment and found themselves confronted by the 30-year-old man in a cramped kitchen.
“The subject was holding his mother in a headlock with a large carving knife to her throat, and she was clearly injured and bleeding,” Chell said.
“Our officers gave numerous commands to drop the knife. However an officer discharged his firearm, striking the subject in the head.”
EMS rushed the man to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he died of his wounds. His name was not immediately released.
The two responding officers, who Chell said have been with the NYPD for about two years, were taken to an area hospital for observation. At least one of the two wounded women was taken to a hospital for treatment.
The wild confrontation was caught on the officers’ body-worn cameras, Chell said.
The man who was fatally shot had a record of two assault arrests and one drug arrest, said police sources.
Chell said cops had gone to the same apartment repeatedly over the years on domestic violence calls — but the dead man had no documented mental history with the NYPD.
“As far as what triggered this — we don’t know exactly what triggered this, so I don’t want to speculate,” he said.
A neighbor, James Watson, said relatives of the dead man told him he had mental health issues. “He was going through mood swings” since Friday night, Watson said.
Before pulling the knife, the man told a relative that “he was going to kill his family and kill him,” Chell said.
Watson said he heard from the knife-wielding man’s family that he had told police: “You’re gonna have to shoot her or shoot me.”
“It’s a tough job for our cops to handle,” Chell said. “Today was a complete tragedy during this holiday season. Thank God the cops got there quickly and saved this family from further harm.”
(Liam Quigley and Emma Seiwell contributed to this report.)
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