Police opened fire on a subway platform in Brooklyn during a confrontation with an alleged fare-beater, striking the man cops said was armed with a knife, two straphangers caught in the fray, and one of the firing officers, NYPD officials said Sunday.
One of those two passengers hit by the cops’ bullets, a 49-year-old man, was hospitalized in critical condition after he was hit struck in the head, according to the NYPD.
The two officers who opened fire were assigned to patrol the Sutter Avenue subway stop in the 73rd precinct when they spotted a man skip the station turnstile and walk through an open gate toward the train platform, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey explained at an evening press conference from Brookdale Hospital.
Until they release the body cam footage, all we have is a blurry photo of someone on the ground holding a knife. As nice as that image is, it does nothing to support the claim that they were “charged at with a knife” and that is the claim people are holding you to task over (and assuming that is true, just allowing this situation to escalate to that point was inexcusably incompetent). The NYPD has been caught intentionally misleading the public with bodycam footage many times before and thus lack the credibility to be believed without evidence, especially when they are being this cagey over releasing the footage. This may very well have been the case, but until they prove it we can’t reasonably take them at their word and you damn well know it.