NYPD COMMISH: 'WE FAILED'
Blaz, commish rip cop’s slay of woman
Procedures not followed in fatal shoot
Blaz: ‘She should be alive now. Period.’
Killer cop was sued twice for brutality
DEBORAH DANNER, after surviving five decades with her mental illness, deserved better than to die on the wrong end of a veteran city cop’s gun.
Mayor de Blasio, echoing his police commissioner, put the blame Wednesday on Sgt. Hugh Barry for escalating a tense confrontation with the schizophrenic 66-year-old woman into a fatal showdown.
Though Danner was armed with a pair of scissors and a baseball bat in her Bronx apartment, the mayor and NYPD top cop James O’Neill agreed the bungling that led to the bullets was avoidable.
“The shooting of Deborah Danner is tragic and it is unacceptable,” the mayor declared. “This should never have happened. It’s as simple as that. Deborah Danner should be alive right now. Period.”
Barry — who had never fired his gun on duty during his eight years with the NYPD — was stripped of his badge and weapon after blasting two bullets into Danner during the incident just after 6 p.m. Tuesday inside her Castle Hill home.
Relatives of the slain woman immediately demanded federal, state and city investigations into the fatal police shooting, reminiscent of the 1984 police killing of Eleanor Bumpurs. Bumpurs, like Danner, was 66 when she was killed by a city cop.
Among the unanswered questions in this killing: Why didn’t Barry use his Taser instead of reaching for his gun?
Another, raised by the dead woman’s cousin, was just as simple: Why didn’t police lock Danner inside the apartment until the Emergency Service Unit arrived?
“It’s distressing to me, the fact that it did end up this way,” said O’Neill (inset photo) in an unusually fast and harsh rebuke. “We just have to take a long, hard look at what happened . . . . What’s clear in this instance is that we failed.”
The commissioner declined to discuss specifics other than to say police policy is to “isolate and contain.” But NYPD protocols call for officers to wait for ESU cops to arrive, and to use a Taser if the option is there.
Police refused to disclose if cops were aware the resident had a history of mental illness.
None of the other cops was equipped with a stun gun, a highranking source told the Daily News.
Barry had undergone training about the proper handling of incidents involving the mentally ill — and inexplicably failed to follow the guidelines, according to O’Neill and the mayor.
“It’s quite clear that our officers are supposed to use deadly force only when faced with a dire situation,” said de Blasio. “And it’s very hard for any of us to see that that standard was met here.” The whole heart-breaking incident took place in a matter of moments, sources said. Barry attempted to talk down the scissor-wielding woman after he arrived. Three other cops were in the tight, narrow bedroom with Danner and the sergeant, according to a source. “He tells her something to the effect, ‘Put the scissor down and we’re going to talk to you.’ She puts it down,” the source said. “At that point, maybe he dropped his guard a little bit.” As Barry tried to lead the distraught woman out to the hallway where two EMS paramedics were waiting, Danner reached down and grabbed the bat beside the
bed.
The sergeant shot Danner in the left shoulder and the chest to end the tense 10-minute showdown that could have convinced Barry that his life was at risk, a police source said.
“It was going right — and then it went bad,” the source said. “He did right and then he did wrong. Now he has to answer why he did what he did. In a way, I feel for the sergeant, but I’m also thinking this didn’t have to happen.”
Cops were summoned by a neighbor who reported the senior citizen was behaving “in an irrational manner.” The slain woman’s sister and guardian, Jennifer Danner, was down the hallway from the apartment when the cops arrived.
She saw the officers rush inside the cramped two-bedroom apartment, and then heard the crack of three gunshots.
“The New York City Police Department has once again failed to properly respond to deal with mentally ill patients without resorting to deadly physical force,” said Jennifer Danner, who met later with the mayor.
Family and friends described Deborah Danner as someone who struggled with her illness dating to her years in college — yet managed to remain upbeat.
“She was a dear friend and a good person,” said Daniel Porro, who recalled seeing her at meetings of the now-defunct Mental Health Council Consumers Committee for the Bronx.
“She had a great laugh,” said Porro. “I enjoyed her laugh. She was highly intelligent. Her illness affected her lifestyle . . . she bounced around from clinic to clinic. It’s hard to find the right help.”
Danner’s cousin Wallace Cooke, a retired city cop, ripped the NYPD’s handling of the case. There were four previous police calls to the apartment, all handled without incident.
“She was never treated anything but normally by the police before,” said Cooke, 74, outside Danner’s home. “I know one time she was taken away in restraints. But we’re not a high-stepping family. We admit she had mental illness.”
Cooke said he answered many similar calls while on the job in Harlem’s 26th Precinct.
“I never had to shoot anybody or pull my gun on them,” he said.
The NYPD’s Force Investigation Division was probing the shooting, but Cooke said that Barry and his team clearly mishandled the situation from the outset.
“The other more simple thing they could’ve done is just close the goddamn door,” Cooke said. “It’s as simple as that. Where was she going? Close the door. She didn’t have no gun.”
Nearly 50 Black Lives Matter protesters marched from Danner’s home to the 43rd Precinct stationhouse Wednesday evening chanting “Justice for Deborah Danner,” “Black Lives Matter”and “F--- the police.”
“We’re being murdered,” said activist Hawk Newsome. “There is no justification for killing a 66-yearold mentally ill woman. We need this police officer to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said the quick condemnation of Barry reeked of politics rather than due process.
“When I asked people why was he (stripped of his gun), everyone kind of rolled their eyes, ‘Well, you know the climate,’ ” he said. “(The NYPD) is lying to the public. They should be upfront about what happened. Now what we have is a perception of wrongdoing and politics.”
Donna Lieberman, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said Danner’s death was unfathomable.
“No person in need of mental health services should end up dying like this,” she said.