Police in New York City shot and killed a man after he climbed onto the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge and lunged at officers with a knife, Gerald Dowling, the city's ESU emergency services commander, said at a briefing.
The incident occurred early in the morning on Friday, September 4, in the middle of one of the city's main attractions. Eyewitnesses to the rope walker first called 911, after which police arrived on the scene to try to convince him to come down. Car traffic on the bridge was temporarily blocked.
The police spoke with the man for almost an hour and repeatedly urged him to drop the knife they noticed in his hands. Several officers donned special safety gear to try to approach the man while he was several hundred feet above the East River.
“He answered the police: “I want to die, I want you to kill me. I have a bomb. You won’t make me do anything bad for the cops.” Throughout the conversation, the police continued to urge him to come down,” Dowling said at a press conference.
According to Dowling, the negotiations eventually culminated in the man, without warning, abruptly descending from the ropes and lunging at one of the police officers with a knife. His colleague was forced to fire a shot, which ultimately became fatal for the intruder. The man was taken to the hospital, but they could not save his life.
The bomb threat was not confirmed – only a flashlight was found on the man, whose identity was not revealed, in addition to a knife. Video of the incident has not appeared on the Internet. Dowling noted that police are still reviewing their body camera footage as part of an internal investigation into the shooting. As New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani later said, the recordings will be published after the investigation is completed.
The incident comes less than a week after New York City police officers shot and killed a knife-wielding woman in Times Square on Aug. 31. She attacked two people, killing the vice president of Bank of America.
