A man was shot dead by New York City police on Sunday after shooting into a crowd gathered Sunday for a Christmas carol concert outside a city church.
No one in the public was affected by the gunfire outside Manhattan’s St John the Divine Cathedral, New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said. Three police officers at the scene fired fifteen times in the direction of the man, whose identity was not disclosed, hitting him at least once in the head, said Mr. Shea.
Police found two handguns on site and a nearby bag containing a tank full of gasoline, ropes, cable and many knives, he added.
photo-source position-absolute"> AFP
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A spokeswoman for the New York City Police Department had earlier said that officers used their guns after the man began shooting.
An AFP reporter who witnessed the scene reported that the man fired outside this church in Manhattan as a few hundred people began to disperse after the chanting ended.
“I heard two or three bangs,” she said. “I looked up and maybe ten meters away from me on the steps there was a guy shooting,” she said.
“I saw the flames coming out of the cannon, I started to run, to save my skin.”
Martha Stolley, another witness, estimated that the man fired eight or ten times before he was shot by police.
“He was shooting without aiming,” she told AFP, adding that the man was shouting “Take me down, kill me!”
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