US Politics Feedback Thread - Page 113

On April 03 2018 07:03 Seeker wrote:

How many other mods are actual humans?

New York City police officers shot and killed a black man who was known to be mentally ill on a Brooklyn street corner on Wednesday afternoon after he pointed what the officers claim they thought was a gun at them, the authorities said. The object, however, turned out to be a metal pipe with a knob on it.

[Angie described Mr. Vassell as a quiet man who often sat outside near a barbershop and sometimes worked odd jobs at her beauty salon for a few dollars.

“He would just walk and bob his head,” she said. “If we ask him to do our chores, he’d come and do it.”

Rocky Brown, 45, who knew him for years, said he was a friendly man who was mentally ill.

“He’s harmless,” Mr. Brown said. “A very willing guy, a very nice guy, a good guy.”

Betty Weaver, 71, said Mr. Vassell would often greet her when she was on her way to church.

Another woman, Nicole Williams, said she had given him $2 earlier on Wednesday afternoon. His last words to her, she said, were “Thank you, God.”] moved this section to the top

The shooting drew a tense, charged crowd of dozens to the streets of Crown Heights. The Police Department had encountered the man before and classified him as emotionally disturbed, and the shooting raised questions about what the officers at the scene knew about him.

four of the officers — the three in street clothes and one uniformed officer — fired 10 bullets in all. The man, identified by his father as Saheed Vassell, 34, was pronounced dead after being taken to Kings County Medical Center.

In an interview at his home late Wednesday night, Mr. Vassell’s father, Eric Vassell, said his son had bipolar disorder and had been admitted to the hospital multiple times in recent years, sometimes after encounters with the police. The younger Mr. Vassell, who was born in Jamaica and came to the United States when he was 6, lived with his family in a Crown Heights apartment and had worked as a welder. He also had a 15-year-old son.


Mr. Vassell’s father said he had never seen his son act as if he had a gun.

He would “just walk around the neighborhood and help people,” the father said.

Area residents said Mr. Vassell was a familiar figure on the corner and a caring father who begged for money in a nearby subway station and did odd jobs for shopkeepers. He loved to dance and was widely known to be mentally ill. People said he had a penchant for picking things up off the street — cigarette lighters, empty bottles and other curbside flotsam — and playing with them like toys.

John Fuller, 59, said that he had known Mr. Vassell for years and that local police officers had, too. He echoed a common refrain: The officers should have known him well enough to not simply shoot him to death. “Every cop in this neighborhood knows him,” Mr. Fuller said.

Witnesses said the police officers appeared to fire almost immediately after they got to the corner around 4:45 p.m. Some of the witnesses said they did not hear the officers say anything to the man before firing, while another witness said she heard the officers and the man exchange some words.

The killing held echoes of the shooting less than three weeks ago in Sacramento in which the police shot and killed a black man who they believed was pointing a gun at them, but who, it turned out, was actually holding a cellphone.

On Wednesday in Brooklyn, Jaccpot Hinds, 40, was walking south on Utica Avenue near Montgomery Street when he saw an unmarked police car pass him and pull across two lanes of traffic near where a man was standing on a street corner. Mr. Hinds said a plainclothes officer got out of the passenger seat of the car and fired at the man several times. The officer appeared to shoot him in the neck, chest and right arm, Mr. Hinds said, and then walked over to the man and prodded his chest with the service weapon.