The New York Police Department suspended four officers charged with inaction on Thursday after a man accidentally shot himself in the leg on a Harlem street corner.
The policemen, identified by police sources cited by the Daily News such as Joshua Polo, Grifford Griffiths, Mohammed Uddin and Sterling Medina, were suspended without pay for the incident that occurred Monday night at the corner of 136th Street and Seventh Avenue, an NYPD spokesman said.
Two of the policemen were on foot patrol, while the other two were on patrol, all as part of a “crime reduction” assignment. The quartet of uniforms were just steps away from a group of men drinking and playing games when the gun was fired.
The incident was recorded by the body camera of the four officers. The detonation is heard in the video, but officers did not identify the sound as a gunshot, according to police. They even assumed that the outburst was that of a firecracker.
Shocking surveillance video obtained by the Daily News shows a cannon flash, followed by the men scattering. One of them, later identified as 32-year-old Xavier Shaw, mistakenly shot himself in the leg and limped away, authorities said.
The pair of foot patrol officers were leaning against a building when the shooting unfolded right in front of them, but they did not investigate the incident, according to police.
During the chaos, some of the men can be seen retrieving items from the ground. They left the gun in the middle of the sidewalk next to what appears to be a trail of blood.
The other two police officers, sitting in a double-parked NYPD SUV, did not get out and even reversed the vehicle so that one of the people involved in the shooting could get into his car and drive away.
The four policemen were suspended a few hours after the surveillance video appeared.
Shaw went to Harlem Hospital on his own. The police charged him with criminal possession of a weapon.
The four suspended officers have been on the job less than five years and none have cases filed with the Civil Complaints Review Board, according to city records.
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