Police fatally shot a man in the Bronx after he retrieved an airsoft gun from his car, the NYPD said Friday night. The pellet gun, officials said, looked like a real “semi-automatic firearm” and the man fired one shot at a detective after refusing to comply with a verbal command.

Police returned fire with ten shots, striking the man five times, deputy Chief Timothy McCormack said at a Friday evening press conference. The exact timeline of events is still under investigation, officials said.

“For all intents and purposes, it looks like a semi-automatic firearm,” said McCormack, the commanding officer of Bronx detectives. McCormack held up a photo of the airsoft gun for the duration of the press briefing.

Narcotics detectives were conducting an investigation when a plainclothes detective overheard a dispute, said NYPD assistant Chief Philip Rivera, the commanding officer of the Bronx. One man said he was going to retrieve a gun from his car, Rivera said, so the plainclothes cop passed along a description of the suspect to his fellow detectives.

The man took the airsoft gun from his car, a black Ford pickup truck, and walked onto the sidewalk on the corner of Seneca and Hunts Point Avenues in the Bronx just after 7 p.m., Rivera said.

A detective walking towards the man from about 10 to 15 feet away said "Police. Don’t move,” according to the police account of events.

“The suspect then raised his gun and fired one time at the detective, just missing the detective’s head,” Rivera said, though he added the exact timing of events was still under investigation.

Officers returned fire, hitting the man in the torso. He was pronounced dead at Lincoln Hospital.

A police sergeant and detective were taken to a hospital for medical evaluation and to be observed for tinnitus, officials said. Mayor Eric Adams visited the officers Friday night, according to his office. 

The shooting comes days after an NYPD officer shot and killed a 25-year-old suspect in the Claremont neighborhood of the Bronx Wednesday.