Brooklyn Bridge police-involved shooting: What we know

We're taking a live look at the Brooklyn Bridge, not just because it's the iconic and beautiful bridge over the East River, but because there was a major incident that happened out here earlier this morning. We do have some Sky Fox video that we can probably go to, so let's check this out. So we started to hear about this during Good Day New York and Good Day Wake Up, right around in the 5.30 timeframe is when we started to hear about what happened. And then more information started to trickle in as the day started to come through. We were also hearing from people on the bridge, or people who were trying to get across the bridge and people trying to get to work, that they couldn't get there because the NYPD actually had things shut down. It turns out that when we finally got some information, we learned that it was a deadly police-involved shooting that happened on the Brooklyn Bridge. Apparently, officers, say a knife-wielding man, climbed the bridge cables and threatened emergency responders. Let's take a look at the video in full, if we can, because you can really get a sense of exactly what we're looking at here. Sometimes when we see these kind of things, your mind goes to, okay, maybe it was somebody like an emotionally disturbed person, or maybe it's a jumper or something along those lines. And so we were wondering if that's what it was, but then you didn't see the emergency service teams sort of on the upper levels there. So then we were thinking maybe it's something else. And then, Frances Wang, we started to get some different information. And by 8.45, the NYPD had a press conference, and they were able to kind of give us all the information that we were looking for. So I know you've been tracking this. What have we learned this morning about what happened on the Brooklyn Bridge earlier? Yeah, well, first, whenever we get a call about an officer-involved shooting, it could mean so many things. And as you mentioned, because it was on the bridge, we could see the traffic. As you mentioned, you didn't see anyone with ESU at the time, but we learned ESU was there. It happened quite early this morning, around 3.28 a.m. is when they got a call. And ESU is Emergency Services Unit, which is one of the elite units within the NYPD that often responds to situations such as this, especially when you talk about on the bridges and things along those lines. Okay, sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. And they gave the details of what happened, a timeline. And actually, oftentimes in these press conferences, we don't get a lot initially. Yeah. We really have to ask questions and have to dig into what happened. But I will say they very much offered up this information, I think trying to justify why an officer fired one shot, ultimately killing this man. If we could play that sound, they go into detail about the process, the difficulty for the Emergency Service Unit officers in terms of having to have a harness on and move very carefully and slowly, especially because the man was walking on the beams. If we could play that sound, I think it really paints perspective of what happened this morning. The officers on the bridge engaged in verbal dialogue with the male for almost an hour, explaining they were there to help and try and convince him to come safely down from the bridge. They observed that the male was holding a knife, and he stated to them, I want to die. I want you to kill me. I have a bomb. You're not going to make me do something bad to the cops. For this prolonged period, officers continued to try to convince the male to safely get off the bridge, while also issuing multiple verbal commands for him to drop the knife. After about an hour, hundreds of feet above the East River, the male began to quickly descend the cable of the bridge towards the officers. Those officers were in one line, each still clipped to the bridge, positioned below the male on the same cable. The officers began to move backwards away from the male, but they were not able to move as quickly as the subject who was approaching them. When the male got within approximately three feet from the closest member of ESU, he raises on with the knife extended outward towards the officer. At that point, a member of ESU who was on the roadbed of the bridge discharged his weapon one time, striking the male. The officers then brought the male down from the cable and began rendering aid. He was transported to Bellevue Hospital and where he was pronounced deceased. So Francis, just to clarify what he said, and you're right, he did sort of lay out a lot of details. This happens around 3.30 this morning. So this is sort of overnight. Is that right? Yeah, exactly. So it's very early in the morning and the initial call is someone who's up on the cables themselves? Yeah. Is that right? Well, walking on the beam is what he said. Walking on the beam. Okay, walking on the beam. And then what happens? They say that- Yeah, so he talks about the officers responded rather quickly and they, I don't know if you heard, but they were harnessed. And he kind of puts into context of when officers with the emergency services unit respond to a situation like this. Because the harness is to ensure the safety of the officers while they're trying to rescue the person, but it also does slow them down. And for whatever reason, as he laid out, the man that they say was holding a knife was moving much quicker than the officers could kind of back away. And so that's when they said one of the officers did fire one shot, ultimately killing him. And they said he had a knife. They said he had a knife and he also said that he had a bomb. It's not clear if he did or what they found out after, but they said he had a knife and they knew that. They said he also had a bomb and that he said he wanted to die. They also mentioned too that all of this was caught on body camera footage. Okay. So I'm curious to see if that's going to be released. They also had a photo of the knife, so they quickly recover that knife. But again, in a situation like this, in the middle of the night, you're on a bridge, you're on the beams, you're harnessed. There's a lot to think about. And they, I think, shared so much information early on, probably because they want to justify why they did what they did. It will be interesting when some of that video comes out. So often it can be so dramatic, sort of dealing with that, especially when you're up as high as you are above the East River on something like the Brooklyn Bridge. Just as we wrap up here, Frances, we mentioned the bomb. And I saw them, this is probably around, I don't know, I think it's probably like 7.45, maybe 8 o'clock when we had it on Good Day. And you could see the officers sort of looking around. And I said to Jim up in SkyFox and to Shawnee that, are they looking for a suspicious device? Because that sort of seemed like what was happening, and it seems like it's possible they were just triple-checking to make sure there was nothing up there. And oftentimes with these press conferences, a lot of times it's at the end when we get the most information, right, when reporters are asking questions, because there's so many things we still want to know. They didn't take a lot of questions, but they did give a lot of detail very early on, which oftentimes they don't, especially with investigations involving deadly police officer shootings. So it'll be interesting to see what this investigation unfolds and, of course, if they release that body camera footage. And obviously, many New Yorkers and people across the country, it was an international story earlier this week when we had the woman in Times Square- Just horrible. Who stabbed two people. One of them died, a young business executive, a mother who had just returned to work. The NYPD shot that woman, killed her. And in that situation, the state attorney general does investigate because it was a deadly shooting. And you would assume that that is standard practice, that in this case, I'm sure we're going to be sort of seeing some of those headlines down the road. And that was definitely something I thought of, too, when they were giving information about someone who is clearly going through something, holding a knife, saying certain things. I mean, my mind also ran to the Times Square incident and how tragic that ended up becoming. Yeah. All right. Well, Frances Wang, thank you very much. And again, just if we can show the video one last time, it doesn't matter if either we're down on live shot or up above. Just to reiterate, a deadly police-involved shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge. This all happened at about 3.30 this morning, a 911 call about a man walking on the bridge with the bridge beams. ESU officers responded and tried to establish a dialogue, talk to him. Because this was a high angle rescue, the officers were clipped into the bridge for their own safety. That meant they could not move quickly, even as the man began coming down the cable toward them. This is what the NYPD told us. Officials say the man claimed he had a bomb and said he wanted officers to kill him. Police say they reportedly ordered him to drop the knife. But when he got within three feet of the officer and extended the knife, that officer fired one shot. The man taken to the hospital pronounced dead. The bridge had been closed for a long time in both directions, a couple hours, and obviously has since reopened. If we can take a look at the live shot, we can show the shot of it, what it looks like right now. All right, so this is right now. So you can see some of that police presence no longer up there, and traffic moving smoothly again. All right, so that's what was happening here in the city this morning on the Brooklyn Bridge. A lot of people, yeah, I mean, were curious what was happening. And so now we know.