NEW YORK — New York City Police officers were involved in three shootings in three counties in less than seven hours Thursday, the New York City Police announced. In the latest reported shooting involving police, a man was injured after allegedly waving a gun near a crowd of people at a Bronx train station, the police added.
Officers were called to at the elevated subway station in West 238th Street y Broadway in the Kingsbridge neighborhood just before 8 p.m. Thursday, authorities said at a news conference. When the police arrived, witnesses at the station pointed out the man who was said to be displaying a gun.
Officers approached the man and told him to drop the weapon, but the suspect did not follow instructions, police said. Instead, he began walking south on a walkway adjacent to the subway tracks, toward the next station at 231st Street.
Some officers followed the man onto the gangway and continued to tell him to drop the firearm, which he allegedly still refused to do, sometimes pointing the gun at the officers. Another group of officers began to approach him from the other direction as he approached the next train station, according to police.
When he pointed the gun once more, an officer fired a shot, the NYPD said. The man was hit by a bullet in the left hand, forcing him to drop the weapon.
Officers secured the gun and assisted the man, who has not yet been identified, but police said they knew him. He was taken to the hospital where he is expected to survive.
Police said the gun (shown below) was not a real gun, but an imitation or BB gun that closely resembles a real firearm.
An investigation is ongoing.
Prior to the incident, there were two other police shootings in New York City that same day. First, in Brooklyn, a 78-year-old man was fatally shot by officers responding to a burglary call in the middle of the afternoon on Lewis Avenue in Bed-Stuy, police said.
Just a couple of hours later, a man acting erratically while armed with a knife outside a Queens church was shot by NYPD officers after he stabbed a security guard, according to police. .
