‘WE’RE AFRAID TO CALL 911’
KIN OF EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED TELL WHY THEY FEAR COP RESPONSE
THE LAST videotaped moments of Saheed Vassell’s life saw the bipolar man running up to Brooklyn pedestrians, wielding a shiny piece of metal resembling a handgun.
The Crown Heights resident finally stopped and aimed the silver pipe with two hands in a shooter’s stance before city cops shot him nine times — killing the 34-year-old Brooklyn dad, officials said Thursday.
The NYPD released video and 911 calls to support the contention that its officers reacted appropriately in the Wednesday shooting as the neighborhood where everyone seemed to know Vassell mourned his death.
“He looks like he’s crazy but he’s pointing something at people that looks like a gun,” said one of the 911 callers seen in the NYPD video. “And he’s like popping it, as if like he’s pulling the trigger.”
The NYPD said three people called to report a man with a gun, which brought the five officers to Vassell’s neighborhood.
Family members and local residents questioned why the mentally ill man, carrying what looked like a showerhead, was shot down so quickly.
“It’s a piece of iron and they kill him for a piece of iron,” said Vassell’s aunt Nora Ford, 59, describing the object her nephew was holding.
“I just want to touch the blood where he died,” she said Thursday morning as she stood on the corner.
“I bet if he was a white kid, they wouldn’t fire a shot at him like that.”
Mayor de Blasio said he would keep the public informed as the shooting investigation unfolded.
“This is a tragedy because a man with a profound mental health problem from what we know so far was doing something that people perceived to be a threat to others,” said de Blasio.
A police official said “some order to stop” was given to Vassell before the shooting started, with two police vehicles arriving at the scene almost simultaneously. Two of the cops were in uniform.
State Attorney General Attorney Eric Schneiderman announced Thursday that his office was investigating the incident. “We’re committed to conducting an independent, comprehensive, and fair investigation,” said his spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick.
Residents described Vassell as a neighborhood eccentric often seen talking to himself on the street where he was killed. The Brooklyn slaying ignited protests, with the NYPD moving Thursday to share its tale of what happened via a 49-second
clip on YouTube.
The 911 calls made shortly before the shooting were accompanied by the security video footage showing an agitated Vassell hustling along the sidewalk.
“There is a guy in a brown jacket walking around pointing . . . what is he pointing in people’s faces?” asked another caller. “They say it’s a gun, it’s silver.”
Vassell was shown jabbing the metal piece in his right hand at the head of one man, at a woman walking with a small child and in the chest of another man. It remained unclear whether the officers took cover after exiting their cars and how close they were to Vassell when the shooting started.
Witness Jesus Santiago, 55, said the burst of gunfire came without a word.
“Everything happened so fast,” he said. “The officers arrived and somebody said, ‘He’s got a gun.’ Nobody said nothing to him. They just started shooting.”
Four of the five officers squeezed off 10 shots, with Vassell killed by gunshot wounds to the head, torso, aorta and spinal cord, the medical examiner determined in an autopsy.
Cops performed CPR on the dying man at the scene, a police officials said.
The officers who approached Vassell had no idea of his mental health woes, a police source said.
When the officers spied Vassell at the intersection of Utica Ave. and Montgomery St., “all they knew was that he fit the description and had what appeared to be a gun in his hands,” the source said.
The cops at the scene were clueless to the man’s mental health issues because they were dispatched to a street location rather than a specific address, said the source. Calls to an address are accompanied by reports of prior calls at the location for emotionally disturbed people, according to the source.
John Jay College professor Eugene O’Donnell, a former police officer, said he had little doubt the five officers involved would be exonerated. “Unless this gets totally politicized, there is no way that this won’t be a justifiable shooting,” said O’Donnell. “This is not only justified for the cops, but for any of the civilians that were there if
they were armed. It cuts both ways.”