Sunday, August 12, 2012

Police Shoot Man in Midtown, and Tourists Reach for Cameras

August 11, 2012, 10:31 pm
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ and AARON EDWARDS

The typical afternoon furor on Times Square became something more menacing on Saturday as throngs of police drew their weapons and pursued a man with a large knife down 7th Avenue and then shot him to death.

The scene was chaotic, confusing and almost certainly dangerous. Yet many bystanders stopped to watch, record video and take photos.

Bystanders took video and photos as the police pursued a knife-wielding man near Times Square.

Lincoln Rocha, 28, and his wife, Priscilla, 28, were visiting New York City from Brazil. While walking down 7th Avenue, they noticed three police talking to a man on the sidewalk. The man pulled out a knife, and the police pulled out their guns.

“And that's when I started taking photos,” Mr. Rocha said.

Other visitors and New York residents joined in, including Jeffrey Gibson, 39, a visitor from Richville, N.Y., whose video captured the pursuit, along with a frighteningly prescient warning shouted by another bystander: “They're going to shoot you, boy.”

A video of the incident taken by Jeffrey Gibson, a visitor from Richville, N.Y., and provided to The New York Times.

Julian Miller, 22, who was visiting New York from Boston, said the police confiscated his phone after he recorded video of the incident. He said in an interview that he followed the pursuit from Times Square to 37th Street and 7th Avenue, his phone recording as he ran to keep up. He said a police detective pulled him aside after the shooting and asked to see his phone and t he video.

“His eyes got big when he saw the video, Mr. Miller said, adding that he had captured the moment of the shooting on video. “He went to go show his boss, and then they took my phone away.” He said the officer told him not to speak with the media.

What happened in the moments leading up to the shooting is not precisely clear. Among the clearest videos made public was provided by a witness to NBC News.

In it, the suspect is seen walking backwards along the sidewalk, passing a Chipotle restaurant. Police later said he was carrying an 11-inch knife. The video is shaky and shot from across the street from the police and the suspect. At one point, several officers appear to crowd around the man, who is hidden from view. Then shots ring out.

The authorities said that the man lunged at the police with what appeared in a police photo to be an Ikea kitchen knife, prompting two officers to open fire. Questions about whether the shooting was justif ied were immediately raised on Twitter, with equal measures of praise and condemnation for the NYPD.

Others were more critical of the handling of the incident by the police, questioning why such force was required.



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