Dramatic video shows the moment an NYPD officer opened fire on a knife-wielding man in a Bronx apartment building — which sources say could be the result of a language barrier between the Spanish-speaking man and police.
The 32-year-old Hispanic man — armed with a large kitchen knife — was shot once in the torso Sunday evening in the stairs of the East 148th Street building in Mott Haven, with a language barrier likely a factor, police and sources said. .
A neighbor’s Ring doorbell footage captures the moment a group of officers walk down the hallway, where they encounter the man, who is not visible in the footage.
Muffled voices can be heard in the clip, although their exact exchange is difficult to decipher. Deputy Chief Rohan Griffith said at a news conference late Sunday that police repeatedly demanded the man drop the knife.
The footage then shows a female officer encountering the man – who remains out of the picture – and shouting: “Wait, wait!” before firing two rounds.
“Shots fired! Shots fired!” the officer shouts into her radio.
“Oh my God! I need help! I need a bus!” the officer shouts as she runs back and forth down the hall. “Oh my God! I have a man’s chance! I need a bus!”
Law enforcement sources now say the injured man — who was hospitalized in stable condition — may not have understood officers’ commands.
Furthermore, the officers’ orders to “hold” are not in line with the NYPD’s training in such situations, the sources said.
In the end, the shooting victim only held the knife to confront an air conditioning thief he had previously called 911 for, the sources said.
The 911 caller was connected to a Spanish interpreter and officers responded to the scene, the sources said.
But the responding officers — who spoke English — were confused by the strange layout of the building and immediately went to the second floor while the caller was still downstairs, the sources said.
A separate Ring camera video shows the caller holding a knife in one hand as he confronts another man – apparently the thief – in an alley outside.
In the meantime, the officers had gone back downstairs.
The moment the knifeman went back inside – closing the door behind him – two shots were heard, followed by the officer’s scream.
The knife-wielding man did not point the weapon at police, but instead possibly tried to point past the officers in the direction of the AC unit thief, the sources said.
Neighbor Juan Rivera, 78, who provided the Ring’s CCTV footage, said the injured man – whom he had known for a “long time” – is a “Mexican man and was completely drunk that day.”
“You can hear him when he’s talking to the police, the way he’s talking, he’s gone crazy,” said Rivera, who has lived in his apartment for 56 years. “The lady there spoke to him in English and he told them he didn’t speak English and they saw the knife and started shooting twice.”
Rivera said the language barrier — and the knifeman’s intoxicated state — could complicate matters.
“I told the detectives, if you have a situation like this, bring someone who speaks Spanish and can control the situation so maybe they can prevent this from happening,” Rivera said. ‘But they send someone who speaks English, even though he doesn’t speak English. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“What’s going to happen?” the neighbor added. “Maybe that person will be killed, or someone else. When they made those shots, you can see they shot into someone’s door. They can hit anyone, innocent people. “
“I don’t know why they have so much training at the police academy and they’re not giving it. They should know.”
Rivera said he had returned from walking one of his dogs, Cluey, when he encountered the multiple officers who responded to the scene of the shooting.
He was also there when the ambulance arrived.
“What happened when they brought EMS is they covered his face,” Rivera said. “They don’t want anyone to see his face.”
Rivera described the video as “embarrassing” and that he had never seen such a scene in his life.
“My father grew up here; all my children grew up here,” he said. “Right now it’s just my wife, me and my dogs.”
“It’s a shame that there is a lot of theft. There are a lot of people who come and steal things every day,” he added. “[Building management] I spent a lot of money on those cameras and they don’t work.”
