NEW YORK — Four people were wounded at a Brooklyn train station Sunday when police officers shot at a man threatening them with a knife, authorities said. The people hit by police gunfire included the man with the blade, one of the officers and two innocent bystanders.
The bloody confrontation began when two officers confronted a man who entered the station without paying his fare, officials said.
One of the bystanders, a 49-year-old man, was hospitalized in critical condition. The man suspected of evading his fare, 37, was shot several times but was in stable condition. A 26-year-old woman suffered a graze wound.
The wounded police officer had a bullet enter his torso under his armpit and lodge in his back but was also expected to recover.
Interim Police Commissioner Thomas Donlan, on only his third day on the job after being appointed last week, promised a thorough investigation into the shooting.
“But right now, we are grateful that our officer will be OK,” he told reporters.
The shooting happened a little after 3 p.m. when two officers followed a man up the station steps to an elevated platform after seeing him enter without paying, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said.
The officers told the man to stop, but he refused, muttering “I’m going to kill you if you don’t stop following me,” Maddrey said. In the course of the encounter, the officers noticed the man had a knife, Maddrey said.
They followed him on to a train that had pulled into the station and fired two Tasers, but neither incapacitated the man, Maddrey said.
Maddrey said the man was advancing on the officers when the knife drawn when both officers fired multiple rounds. Both officers then gave first aid to the man, before one of them realized that he, too, had been hit by a bullet.
“While they’re working on the male, they’re become aware that other people are hit by fire, by gunfire as well,” Maddrey said.
Mayor Eric Adams visited the wounded officer in the hospital Sunday, ahead of a news conference addressing the shooting.
The Democrat described the man who evaded the subway fare as a “career criminal,” saying he had over 20 arrests. Maddrey said the man had a history of mental illness.
Video footage of the shooting was not immediately released Sunday. The NYPD did release a cropped image they said was of the man holding the knife, a blade about the width of the person’s palm.
“I’m especially concerned with bystanders, people who are just trying to get where they’re going being the victims—harmed in this situation,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority Janno Lieber said.
The subway station serves the L line in the neighborhood of Brownsville. Lieber said that there are cameras inside the the train, on the platform and at the entrance.
In 2019, NYPD officers accidentally shot and killed two fellow officers while confronting crime suspects in separate on-duty incidents.