COP: I HAD TO FIRE
The NYPD sergeant who fatally shot a bat-wielding Bronx woman gives his first public account of the incident in new court papers, describing the moment he pulled the trigger.
The documents — which argue for a change of venue in Sgt. Hugh Barry’s murder trial — recount when the embattled cop first chillingly realized that schizophrenic Deborah Danner, 66, had traded her scissors for “an indisputably deadly weapon.”
“As Sergeant Barry rushed into the bedroom, Ms. Danner grabbed a thirty-two (32) inch wooden bat from under the covers on the bed,’’ the document states.
“[She] turned toward [Barry], and held the bat in a righthanded baseball-batter stance, with her right hand above her left, with the bat above her right shoulder near her ear.
“In response to the deadly threat posed . . . Sergeant Barry immediately drew his firearm.’’
The papers provide the officer’s perspective on the entire ordeal, from his arrival at Danner’s Castle Hill home to him frantically trying to revive the woman he had just killed.
Barry arrived at the woman’s apartment the night of Oct. 16, 2016, while responding to a radio call of an “emotionally disturbed person — violent,’’ the papers said.
Other cops were already in her living room, but there was no sign of Danner. Barry peered into the disturbed woman’s bedroom, where he saw her sitting “on her bed furiously snapping a pair of green-handled metal scissors,” the papers state.
Barry asked her to put the scissors down, but she brandished them in his direction, blades up, snarling, “I’m not f--king coming out!” he said.
Eventually, he convinced her to drop the cutters on her bedside nightstand and come toward the bedroom doorway, he said.
He backed into the living room as Danner approached, but she stopped at the door and announced, “I’m not going any further,” court papers recount.
Danner then retreated back into the bedroom. At that point, Barry, 31, a nine-year NYPD veteran, said he was worried the 5foot-7, 233-pound woman would re-arm herself.
“He was concerned because Ms. Danner appeared to be a strong, robust woman, and it would be difficult to disarm her if she once again grabbed the scissors,” the papers state.
Barry said he went into the room again and that’s when Danner suddenly grabbed the bat that was hidden under her sheets.
The cop — “unable to retreat from the bedroom due to the proximity of the threat posed by Ms. Danner, the size of the bed- room, and the presence of the officers behind him” — repeatedly ordered Danner to “please drop the bat,’’ the documents state.
“Within seconds, Ms. Danner lunged off the bed and at Sergeant Barry while swinging the bat directly at his head.
“Sergeant Barry was within feet of Ms. Danner and would have been struck in the head with the bat if he did not fire his weapon when he did,’’ according to the papers, submitted last week, in which Barry claims he can’t get a fair trial in The Bronx.
Critics have said Barry should have used his Taser, the documents note.
At a hearing last May, ADA Wanda Perez-Maldonado said: “Barry disregarded his training from the New York City Police Department in dealing with emotionally disturbed persons . . . by rushing into Ms. Danner’s apartment without getting critical information.”