An unprecdented release of video by the NYPD, showing the first police shooting ever captured on body cameras worn by officers. NY1 Criminal Justice Reporter Dean Meminger has the details -- and the controversy -- in the following report:.
"Put your hands up!"an officer shouts.
A tense scene inside an apartment on Pratt Avenue in the Bronx. Police officers pleading with a 31-year man to drop a knife he held in one hand and what appeared to be a gun in the other.
"Put that knife on the floor! You hear me? Put it down!" another officer says,
Police released video of the approximately 16-minute standoff from body cameras worn by four officers from the 47th Preinct. They had been called to the apartment to check on Miguel Richards after the landlord claimed he hadn't seen the tenant for days. The video shows officers proceeding to the door of Richards' bedroom and repeatedly urging him to disarm
“I don’t want to shoot you if that’s a fake gun in your hand, but I will shoot you if that’s a real gun in your hands,” one of the officers says.
The NYPD says officers asked Richards 44 times to drop the knife and 6 times to drop his gun. A friend of Richards was there and asked him more than 40 times to drop the knife and more than 70 times to raise his hands.
At one point, the friend's pleas turned personal.
"Do this for your mother!" the friend urged. "There is someone you've got to love, brother!"
But Richards, according to the video, appeared not say a word. The standoff ended when he raised a gun with a red laser on it.
One officer tasered Richards, and two others fired a combined sixteen shoots. The gun in Richards' hand, turned out to be a toy
Although the NYPD decided to release the video so the public could see what happened, several people are unhappy about that decision, including the Bronx district attorney, who says making the video public could compromise her investigation. And the police union says the release sets a dangerous precedent and violates the rights of officers.
NY1 had to sue the NYPD for access to body cam footage from a pilot program of the cameras. But in this case, the NYPD said it was just trying to be transparent.
"There will be a full comprehensive review of all aspects of this shooting," Chief of Department Caros Gomez said at a briefing.
Civil rights organizations say the video shows cops need better training in dealing with emotionally disturbed people. The groups also question what guidelines the department is using for releasing body camera footage.
But clearly the NYPD knows it set a precedent in releasing this video, and the department probably now will have to release any future videos of police killing someone.