NYPD officer fatally shoots knife-wielding man on Brooklyn Bridge cables

Officers spent nearly an hour trying to talk man down before shooting

An NYPD officer fatally shot a knife-wielding man on the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge in the early hours of Friday, after he descended toward officers who had spent nearly an hour trying to talk him down, NYPD officials said. The shooting occurred several hundred feet above the East River and is being investigated by the department’s force investigation division.

At a news conference on Friday, Gerald Dowling, the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit, said a 911 call came in at approximately 3:28 a.m. Friday, reporting that a man was walking on the beams of the bridge. ESU officers responded and saw a man “walking on the bridge cables,” Dowling said.

The officers climbed onto the cables and “attempted to establish a verbal dialogue with the male and safely remove him from the bridge,” Dowling said. They spent nearly an hour speaking with the man, explaining they were there to help and trying to convince him to come down safely, according to Dowling. During the interaction, the officers observed the man was holding a knife and issued “multiple verbal commands for him to drop the knife,” Dowling said.

The man told the officers, “I want to die, I want you to kill me. I have a bomb. You are not going to make me do something bad to the cops,” according to Dowling.

After about an hour, the man “began to quickly descend the cable of the bridge towards the officers,” Dowling said. The officers were still clipped to the bridge and positioned below the man on the same cable, wearing safety harnesses that limited their movement, Dowling explained. When ESU officers are “conducting high-angle rescue,” Dowling said, they wear a harness “physically clipped into the bridge” for their safety, and “being secured to the bridge drastically impacts the speed of their movement.”

“The officers began to move backwards away from the male, but they were not able to move as quickly as the subject who was approaching them,” Dowling said. “When the male got within approximately 3ft from the closest member of ESU, he raised his arm with the knife extended outward towards the officer.”

An ESU officer who was on the roadbed of the bridge “discharged his weapon one time, striking the male,” Dowling said. The officers then brought the man down from the cable and began rendering aid, Dowling said. The man was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced deceased.

A knife and a flashlight were recovered from the scene, and the entire incident was captured on police-worn body cameras, Dowling said. The NYPD shared a photo on social media of what they said was the knife recovered.

The man has not been identified. Dowling said ESU members are “specially trained for these types of high-risk and incredibly dangerous situations” and “receive extensive instruction on de-escalation and how to engage with individuals compassionately.”

The shooting came several days after NYPD officers fatally shot a woman brandishing knives in Times Square after she attacked two people with the knives, killing a 32-year-old woman, according to earlier reporting.