New York police shooting video

AP

In this photo provided by Lincoln Rocha via The New York Times, police and a man wielding a 28cm knife confront each other in New Yorks Times Square. The man, identified as Darrius Kennedy of Hempstead, New York, and a native of South Carolina, was shot dead by police a few blocks away in the city centre.

New York - Lincoln Rocha had just taken some photographs of his wife while they visited crowded Times Square on a hot summer’s day when he saw a man nearby start to back away from police officers who were talking to him.

When they reached out to try to grab hold of the man, Rocha said, “He just went for his knife”. The officers went for their guns, and Rocha went for his camera.

“When I saw the officers draw their guns, I was sure they would kill him,” the Brazilian tourist said on Sunday, the day after the man, 51-year-old Darrius Kennedy, was shot dead by police, who said he had lunged at officers with the 28cm kitchen knife.

“If they’re going to kill him, I want to take some pictures, I want to record it,” Rocha said.

Kennedy was smoking marijuana near the military recruiting station in Times Square at about 3pm on Saturday when officers first approached, police said. It was the beginning of an encounter that would stretch for seven of the most crowded blocks in New York City in mid-afternoon and end a few minutes later with 12 gunshots and many witnesses.

As officers spoke to Kennedy, he became agitated, pulled out the knife and began to put a bandanna on his head, police said. He ignored repeated orders to drop the knife and began backing away, continuing for blocks as he waved the knife and drew many officers into a slow-speed pursuit that itself lured onlookers.

Rocha said it was the first time he had ever seen anything like it in any of his several visits to New York City.

“You see something like this, you want to record it,” he said. And in Times Square, crowded with countless tourists, street vendors and New Yorkers, many others apparently felt the same way.

“They’re going to shoot you, boy,” a man’s voice is heard yelling on a video that an onlooker provided to The New York Times.

Numerous officers can be seen going down the street in another video on the website of the New York Daily News.

According to the police, officers pepper-sprayed Kennedy six times but he held on to the knife throughout, wiping the spray off his face. Finally, he lunged at police and two officers shot him in the torso, police said.

In one video segment, police cars with sirens blaring pull up as gunshots are heard. Officers quickly block off onlookers.

Kennedy was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital. –

Sapa-AP