Police Shootings 2017: NYPD Officers Fatally Shot Knife-Wielding Bronx Man

A 31-year-old man was fatally shot and killed by police officers in the Bronx on Wednesday night in what was the first police shooting in New York City to be captured on official New York Police Department (NYPD) body cameras, police said, according to ABC 7 News.

Officers said they received a call to a Pratt Avenue apartment Wednesday and were let in by the building’s landlord who likely made the call as he was concerned for his tenant whom he hadn't seen in a while.

When the landlord opened the door to the tenant’s apartment, the 31-year-old man was standing with a knife in one hand with the other hand tucked behind his back, police said.

The police then told the man to drop the knife, however, he did not comply with them. A while later, a backup team arrived at the scene with a Taser. Officials said at least one of the officers was wearing a body camera which is said to have captured the entire incident. The body camera will now be used by the investigators for further information, Fox News reported.

One of the officers noticed a gun in the man's right hand and they asked him to drop it. They also enquired if it was real. "We don't want to hurt you," police said.

When the man refused to drop his weapons, one of the officers fired the Taser while two other officers fired at the man with their service weapons.

Later, the police recovered a small fake gun from the man. The gun was fitted with a laser and appeared to an imitation pistol.

Paramedics were soon informed and they took the man to Jacobi Medical Center, however, he succumbed to his injuries soon after and was declared dead. Police have not released the identification of the man, however, they found a Jamaican passport in his possession. Yet, they are not yet sure if the man was originally from there, according to the New York Post.

Police killings have seen a rise in the last few years. More people have been killed by police in 2017 than at this same point in each of the last three years, as per the statistics maintained in a national database tracking the deaths.

According to the statistics maintained by a national database tracking the deaths caused by police shootings, there has been a rise in the number of killings in 2017. The data found that at least 181 people were killed by the police till Feb. 20 this year as compared to 162 deaths reported in 2016, 154 in 2015 and 126 in 2014, according to the Killed By Police database.

On Wednesday, a similar incident took place when the police shot and killed an armed man in northeast Charlotte in North Carolina. The man was said to have been shot in the 1900 block of Prospect Drive, which is located in the Hidden Valley neighborhood near West Sugar Creek Road. Police said there had been responding to a report regarding a man with a gun at Hunters Pointe Apartment in the area.

Most of the killings by the police in the U.S. involved officers using their service weapons and shooting, including Tasers. Some killings also involved physically restraining suspects and officers using their official vehicles to kill.

Another similar shooting took place in February this year, when the New York Police Department shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old teenager named Sergio Reyes, who was accused of robbing a deli in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, CBS New York reported at that time. Officers, who responded to the robbery and was said to have found the suspect on a nearby street.

"The officers gave verbal commands and engaged the suspect," NYPD Chief of Patrol Terry Monahan told CBS New York then. "The suspect had a black firearm in his hand and raised it toward the officers," which Monahan said had prompted officers to fatally shoot the teen.