Cop ‘body’ vid shows attacker being shot
BODY CAM VIDEO released Monday of an incident last month in Manhattan showed a chaotic 10-second showdown that ended when cops shot a man in the leg.
Officials said Paris Cummings, 27, charged at cops with two knives after they knocked on his Harlem door on Oct. 22.
Two officers were responding to a report of a suicidal person in a sixth-floor apartment on W. 143rd St. near Riverside Drive just before 5:30 p.m. when they encountered the knife-wielding man.
In the video, the cops command Cummings three times to drop the knife, but instead, he advances on the officers in a tight hallway (inset) and is shot in the leg.
The officers gave Cummings first aid as they waited for an ambulance, Harrison said.
Cummings also had self-inflicted stab wounds to the stomach and neck, sources said. He has been indicted on attempted murder charges.
Police said Cummings may have been trying to commit “suicide by cop.”
Cummings was alone in the apartment when cops arrived. Officials said a person who had visited Cummings and other neighbors placed 911 calls.
Authorities said Officer Alvin Pizarro, an 11-year veteran who works out of the 30th Precinct, fired the shot. He was also wearing the camera. His partner, rookie Officer Gino Guerra, is seen knocking on the door.
A neighbor, Cheryl Hayes, said Cummings is mentally ill, and had been placed in the apartment by Services for the Underserved, a social services agency. An agency attendant confirmed the placement, but declined to comment .
“I heard them hollering and then there was a gunshot,” Hayes, 58, said. “I looked out and they were bringing him out on the stretcher. His hands were restrained. He was tied to the gurney but he was alert and he was talking.”
The incident marked the third cop-involved shooting to be captured by the device in the past three months.
The NYPD rolled out its first body cameras for cops in April as part of a pilot program launched in response to a court order stopping the city’s stop-and-frisk program.