No one in the audience gathered for a Christmas carol concert on Sunday was hit by the gunfire, police say.
–
–
–
Posted the 12/14/2020 06:33
Update the 12/14/2020 07:43
Reading time : 1 min.
–
A man was shot dead by New York City police on Sunday, December 13, after shooting outside a city church where a crowd gathered for a Christmas carol concert. Three police officers who intervened at the scene fired fifteen times in the direction of the man, whose identity was not communicated, hitting him at least once in the head, explained Dermot Shea, chef of the New York police.
No one in the public was affected by the gunfire around St John the Divine Cathedral in Manhattan, Dermot Shea said.
Police found two handguns at the scene and a nearby bag containing a full tank of gasoline, ropes, cable and many knives, he added. A spokeswoman for the New York Police Department had earlier said that officers used their guns after the man started 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”, did she say. “I looked up and maybe ten meters from me on the steps there was a guy shooting.”
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!”.
–
