NYPD Caused All Bystander Wounds in Empire State Building Shootout

Posted on Aug 25, 2012

AstroZombee23 (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The New York Police Department has acknowledged that all nine people wounded in the Empire State Building shootout Friday were hit with bullets fired by its officers.

CNN reported that officers fired a total of 16 shots in the fatal confrontation with Jeffrey Johnson, who killed a former colleague on a Fifth Avenue sidewalk. Most of those injured have been treated at hospitals and released.

“One officer shot nine [bullets] while another one shot seven,” the NYPD said. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explained that the bullets hit “flowerpots and other objects around, so ... [they were] fragmented and, in essence, that’s what caused the wounds.”

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

The Atlantic Wire:

The next question the NYPD will have to answer is why the two officers needed to fire 16 bullets to take down one man who, as we can see in the video, was only a few feet away from them. People began to suspect the nine wounded were hurt by NYPD bullets yesterday when the math didn’t add up. The .45-caliber pistol Johnson used carries eight bullets. Five of those were used to kill the victim, two were left in the chamber, and one was found unfired on the ground after the shootout.

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