NYPD Shooting of Black Woman in Brooklyn Under Investigation
Friday, June 15, 2012 at 03:30AM From [HERE] A New York City police detective shot and killed a woman in Brooklyn Thursday as they grappled in her car after it ran through a red light and collided with a minivan, a police spokesman said.
The 23-year-old woman, who wasn't immediately identified, was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital Center not long after the 5:40 p.m. incident.
She was the fifth person to be shot and killed this year by New York City police, who have averaged 10 fatal shootings annually in recent years.
New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said the woman was behind the wheel of a Toyota Camry that was driving erratically. It caught the attention of two members of the Brooklyn South Narcotics unit, a detective and an officer.
The car went through two red lights in the Flatbush section and crossed the double line in the center of Church Avenue before smashing into the Toyota minivan at East 38th Street, Mr. Browne said.
The detective approached the car on the driver's side, while the officer went to the passenger side, the spokesman said. Both were plain-clothed.
Inside, the woman scrambled to the passenger side as both officers attempted to enter the Camry, the spokesman said.
Mr. Browne said the 44-year-old detective, who has been on the force since 2000, began struggling with the woman over the gear shift, his gun drawn. She was able to put the car in reverse, knocking the 27-year-old officer back out of the car.
The car backed up 18-20 feet, with the detective inside it. The gun fired, hitting the woman once in the chest.
"He has his gun out with one hand, attempting with the other hand to shift the car into park," Mr. Browne said. "She puts it into reverse and guns it, and a single round is discharged, hitting the woman in the chest."
It was unknown if the discharge was accidental or intentional.
The officer was taken to New York Methodist Hospital, the official said.
The driver of the minivan had minor injuries.
The woman had been arrested eight times, including for kidnapping and attempted murder in connection with a May 2011 home invasion, a law-enforcement official said. She was out on $25,000 bail in that case and due in court on Friday, the official said.
The Camry had been stolen at gunpoint on June 5, and its passenger seat had been removed, Mr. Browne said.
He said the woman wasn't carrying identification and police determined her name through fingerprints.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene. "They shot her and pulled her out of the car. Then she started screaming," said Ayanna Blackman, 38, who watched from her apartment on the same corner.
Witnesses said the woman was covered in blood when she was pulled from the car.
Two elected officials from the area, Assemblyman Nick Perry and Councilmember Jumaane Williams, appeared on the scene and called for an investigation into the shooting.
A crowd gathered in the tense hour after the incident, and shouts of "murderers" were directed at police officials on the scene.
The shooting comes at a time of heightened public scrutiny of the NYPD's tactics, particularly in some of the city's minority communities.
A narcotics-enforcement officer pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges Wednesday in the fatal shooting in February of an unarmed African-American teenager in the Bronx. Officer Richard Haste was the first officer to be charged criminally in an on-duty shooting since three officers were indicted in the 2006 death of Sean Bell.
Mr. Haste was indicted in the February death of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham, who was shot at close range in his apartment after he tried to flush a bag of marijuana down the toilet. Police had chased him into his home on the belief that he was carrying a gun, Mr. Haste's defense attorney, Stuart London, said Wednesday.
Recent months also have seen increasing backlash by many African-American and Hispanic New Yorkers against the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy, including new legal challenges against the tactic. A record 685,000 stops were made in 2011, the majority involving black and Latino men in low-income neighborhoods.
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