‘He didn’t get out the taxi... then bang’
POLICE SHOOT TAXI PASSENGER
ARMED police shot a man through a taxi window in a North East town after he did not respond to repeated warnings to get out of the vehicle, a witness has said.
The suspect suffered an injury to his upper arm or shoulder and was taken to hospital following the incident in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, at around 10.46am yesterday.
Durham Police said a man was shot after officers received reports of a suspect being seen with a handgun.
Police forensics officers were at the scene, close to the Masons Arms pub in the Etherley Dene area.
A witness who was in his garden when the local taxi pulled up at temporary traffic lights said: “I saw four or five police cars come.
“Six or eight armed officers got out and they surrounded the taxi and started shouting very loudly for the passenger to get out. He was resisting, shouting obscenities.
“This went on for a while, there was at least six or seven times they warned him, saying get out of the taxi.”
The witness said: “The police were not pussyfooting around.
“They shouted, ‘This is your final warning, if you don’t get out we will shoot.’
“He didn’t get out, and ... bang.”
The witness, who did not want to be identified, said the taxi driver managed to get out of the vehicle with his hands up and fled to safety prior to the shot being fired.
The witness said the man was shot once through the taxi window.
“He was writhing in agony,” the local said. “But he was still effing and ‘c-ing’ at the police.”
An ambulance was called and paramedics worked on him at the scene for around 30 minutes before he was taken to hospital.
Durham Police said the Independent Office for Police Conduct will investigate.