News / Human Rights

US police shoot black man in head in New York City

Wednesday, 13 May 2015 5:09 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 14 May 2015 1:35 AM ]

David Baril was shot in the head by a New York police officer in Midtown Manhattan.

US police have shot a black man in the head in Manhattan in New York City, amid widespread anger over a spate of police killings of African Americans in the country.

The man, identified as 30-year-old David Baril, was shot by an officer on Wednesday morning, according to the New York Police Department (NYPD).

Initial reports said Baril was killed, but police later said he was in "critical but stable condition" at Bellevue Hospital Center.

A witness, Anthony O’Grady, told the New York Times that he saw a police officer fired three shots at the man who was running downtown in the middle of Eighth Avenue at 37th Street.

“He looked like he was trying to get away from the officers,” said O’Grady.

Police stand over the suspect at West 37th Street and 8th Avenue.

Rich Docherty, a freelance photographer from Jersey City who also witnessed the incident told the Times that he was walking north on Eighth Avenue when he noticed two officers, Officer Lauren O’Rourke and Officer Geraldo Casaigne, were chasing a man on West 37th Street.

He said, “My sense was they were going full steam. It was a full-blown pursuit.”

Docherty said he estimated that the male officer fired his gun from a distance of about 10 feet (about 3 meter). He said that he heard four shots.

Police investigators claimed that Brail might be the person they were trying to identify as a suspect in a series of hammer attacks around Union Square this week.

Crime scene investigators inspect a small hammer allegedly used in an attack on a police officer.

The officers said they recognized the man by his picture captured by surveillance cameras and distributed among them.

A police spokesman, however, could not confirm a connection between the victim and the hammer attacks.

In an incident on Monday, a man struck a 28-year-old woman in the head with a hammer near the Union Square, according to police sources. Minutes later a 33-year-old woman was hit by the same man at 44 West 18th Street.

Both women were then taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The killing of several unarmed black men by white police officers in recent months and decisions by grand juries not to indict the officers triggered large-scale protests across the United States.

SB/GJH

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