Police officers shot and killed a black man holding a pipe in Brooklyn on Wednesday after the NYPD responded to calls about a man aiming a gun at people, authorities said.
NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said that four officers arrived at the scene in the Crown Heights neighborhood, and "the suspect then took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at the approaching officers." They fired 10 shots, hitting the man multiple times. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died. Officers did not recover any firearms at the scene, and Monahan said they were not wearing body cameras.
Family members have identified the victim as 34-year-old Saheed Cassell, a welder and father of a teenage son. Cassell's father told the New York Daily News his son struggled with bipolar disease, and a neighbor said Cassell "never had a problem with anyone," and "the officers from the neighborhood, they knew him." A witness told the Daily News the officers — three in plainclothes and one in uniform — "hopped out of the car" and fired without warning. "It's almost like they did a hit," Jaccbot Hinds said. "They didn't say please. They didn't say put your hands up, nothing."