What to Know
- A man was shot and killed after an NYPD officer was hit in the face with a chair at a Brooklyn salon, according to police
- Police in Brownsville were placing a man under arrest when another man interfered, and hit one of the officers with a chair
- The officer who was hit fired his weapon six times, striking the suspect in the head; the officer is in critical but stable condition
An NYPD officer who shot and killed a man who struck him in the head with a chair at a Brooklyn salon has been placed in a medically induced coma, police said.
Police said a man entered the Gold Mine nail salon near the corner of Mother Gaston Boulevard and Sutter Avenue in Brownsville around 5:45 p.m. Friday, asking to use the bathroom. When he was denied access, he began urinating on the floor of the salon, NYPD Chief of Patrol Rodney Harrison said during a press conference.
Salon owners flagged down two cops nearby, and asked them to remove the man. The cops discovered there were outstanding warrants out for the man's arrest, and began to place him under arrest when he resisted, Harrison said.
That's when another man came into the store and began a violent struggle with the officers, leading to one of them using their stun gun on him, but it failed to subdue him, according to Harrison.
The man, identified by police sources as 33-year-old Kwesi Ashun, then used a chair and struck one of the officers in the head, police said. The cop that was hit then fired his gun six times, striking Ashon in the head and shattering the front window of the salon, according to a law enforcement source.
Ashun was pronounced dead at the scene, Harrison said. The officer who fired his weapon, who has been a member of the department for 21 years, was taken to Brookdale Hospital and was placed in a medically-induced coma as he was in critical but stable condition.
The 26-year-old man who urinated on the salon floor was arrested and charged with resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, the NYPD said.
"An attack on a uniformed officer doing his duty is an attack on society at large, and we can't have that," First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker said.
The other officer was treated for tinnitus at Kings County Hospital, and has been released. The man who police were initially trying to arrest has been brought into custody, with charges pending.
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"We're standing in a hospital because one of our brave officers was injured while keeping New Yorkers safe," Harrison said. "This incident underscores the dangers officers face each and every day."
Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch said that the violence against cops is "never acceptable, it has to stop."
"It seems like it has only been days since we had to rush to a hospital — because it is," Lynch said. "This police officer spent his career in our busiest precincts serving the community and he was set upon for no reason. There is never, ever an acceptable reason to attack a New York City police officer."
Ashun allegedly had some history with the NYPD dating back more than a decade, when he allegedly slashed an officer on the side of the head with a knife and injured a second officer in Brooklyn in 2004, according to the New York Times. In that incident, the suspect was subdued with pepper spray.
A state legislator from Brooklyn was in the area at the time of the shooting and described a scene of "mayhem."
"Children were running," Assemblywoman Latrice Walker said. "Families were afraid. My daughter was screaming."
She added, "Our community is definitely traumatized today because this was a senseless death."
This is the latest in a string of police-involved shootings across the city in recent weeks. There have been six police-involved shootings across New York City since the end of September, five of which have now been fatal.
