Police Fatally Shoot Armed Man After Standoff in Brooklyn

Officers responding to a report of gunfire in a Brooklyn housing project on Tuesday came across a man pointing a weapon at them from behind a tree on a dark street and shot him several times, killing him, the police said.

The police said the incident was not related to the demonstrations and clashes between protesters and officers that continued to wrack the city on Tuesday night in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white Minnesota police officer.

The protests over Mr. Floyd’s death, and other deaths of black people at the hands of police officers, have heightened tensions between the Police Department and residents of predominately black and Latino neighborhoods like the one where the shooting occurred.

Officers responded to the Kingsborough Houses in the Crown Heights neighborhood after ShotSpotter sensors detected gunfire around 9:26 p.m., the police said.

When officers arrived, they were told that a man in his 40s had been shot near the corner of Rochester Avenue and Bergen Streets, the entrance of the housing project.

But the officers couldn’t immediately find the wounded man, because he had crawled away from the place where he had been shot, a police official said.

Witnesses told the police that a man with a gun had run up the block, Chief Terence Monahan said at a news conference near the scene less two hours after the incident. After a search, the officers came upon the armed man, who they believed to be the shooter, hiding behind a tree on Bergen Street, the chief said.

The man, who was 34 but whose name was not released, pointed his weapon at the responding officers, the police said. For more than a minute, officers ordered the man over and over to drop his weapon in an adrenaline-charged standoff, the chief said.

Videos posted on Facebook and Twitter also showed numerous neighbors behind the officers, warning the man, “Drop the gun!”

Chief Monahan said body cameras recorded the officers yelling, “He’s moving his head. He’s getting up. He’s gonna go, he’s gonna go! Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Please drop the gun! Please drop the gun.”

Then there was a deafening volley of fire, an audio recording of which was made by a witness and circulated online. Chief Monahan said 10 officers had fired at the man. He did not immediately know many rounds they had fired, or whether the man had fired his pistol.The shooting was also recorded on the officers’ body cameras, the chief said.

“The male refused the orders of the officers, the officers discharged their weapon at the individual and struck him,” Chief Monahan said.

The man collapsed on the spot and died before he could be taken to a hospital, Chief Monahan said. He displayed a photo of the man’s pistol, which investigators believe was obtained illegally.

A puddle of blood on the sidewalk could be seen near a patch of bushes after the shooting.

The police said they did not know what had led to the first shooting. The wounded man who crawled away was discovered nearby and was taken to a hospital, where he remained in stable condition, the police said. None of the officers was seriously injured, the police said.

Janet Howell, who lives within a block of the scene of the shooting, said she came outside after hearing a half-dozen shots and saw the police carrying a man to a squad car.

“All I heard was shots and then sirens,” she said. Ms. Howell said the man appeared to have been shot in the shin; he was limping, supported by officers, and had what appeared to be a tourniquet tied around his thigh.

The police later took the same man to a nearby ambulance, she said. At that point, the police yelled for Ms. Howell to get back inside her apartment building on Rochester Avenue, she recalled.

Roy Isaacs, who lives in the same building as Ms. Howell, said he came outside after he heard shots and saw the same man with a leg wound lying on the ground in a courtyard of the housing development.

As the police ran south on Rochester Avenue, they screamed that Mr. Isaacs should get back inside. “They said they were looking for the shooter,” Mr. Isaacs said.

Moments later, he saw the officers crouched behind cars and trucks as if taking cover before a shootout, but he said he didn’t hear any more shots.

Another witness, who did not give his name because he feared for his safety, said he saw officers trying to assist the wounded man just before the gunfire erupted.

Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting.