NEW YORK (AP) — Footage of two New York City police officers opening fire at a subway station as they confronted a man holding a knife shows they fired at him as he was standing still, his arms by his side and his back to a train.
In the days since Sunday’s shooting, police officials have repeatedly emphasized that the officers fired after Derell Mickles “charged” at one of them, and when their attempts to deescalate the situation and use Tasers had failed — leaving them with little choice but to resort to deadly force to protect themselves and other passengers.
The footage, uploaded to the NYPD’s YouTube page Friday, offers a different view of the shooting that not only wounded Mickles but also a bystander, who was hit in the head with a stray bullet. Gregory Delpeche, 49, was sent to the hospital in critical condition, where doctors had to open up his skull to reduce brain swelling, according to his family.
The shooting had already come under scrutiny in a city where around 3 million people ride the subway daily. As New Yorkers waited for the footage to be released, many questioned the officers’ decision to open fire on a platform near other passengers.
Days before releasing the footage, police officials defended the officers in a news conference Wednesday.
“It happened because an individual decided to enter our subway system. He refused to drop that weapon, after repeated orders by the officers. And then he advanced towards the officers while he was armed,” the NYPD interim commissioner, Thomas Donlon, said.
NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell described the shooting as a “tragic situation” and said “we did the best we could to protect our lives and the lives of people on that train.”
As Chell described it, Mickles jumped a turnstile at the Sutter Avenue subway station in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn a little after 3 p.m. Sunday. The two officers asked the 37-year-old Brooklyn native to leave, and he did, but Mickles was seen unfolding a knife on his way out.
Video surveillance footage from the station also released Friday doesn’t have audio, but appears to show this playing out.
When Mickles returned to the station a few minutes later, the officers followed him up the steps onto the elevated platform. In the body camera footage, they tell Mickles to drop the knife. Mickles, standing with his hands behind his back says, “I’m not dropping it, you’ll have to shoot me.” While no blade is visible, the officers repeatedly implore him to show them his hands, and he tells them to leave him alone.
When a train pulls into the station, the back and forth continues as Mickles backs onto the train, his hands still behind his back, and the officers follow him on. They repeatedly say “put it down” and then fire their Tasers, which appear to have little effect, embedding in Mickles’ T-shirt before he rips them out and walks off the train.
Now on the platform, Mickles holds the knife with the blade open. The officers follow him out from different doors, and Mickles runs in the direction of one officer, who runs backwards while the second officer runs towards them.
When the officers pull out their guns, Mickles comes to a complete stop, his hands by his sides, in front of the train. As Mickles turns his head slightly to the left, they open fire in his direction — which is also the direction of the train, where two passengers can be seen behind him. Mickles falls into the doorway, while the passengers inside flee.
In Chell’s telling on Wednesday, he said: “Mr. Mickles charged one of the officers and then turned around and the other officer was standing there within approximately 5 feet. It was at this time they both discharged their weapons, striking Mr. Mickles.”
In addition to Mickles and Delpeche, who was on the next train, one of the officers was wounded in the shooting, and a 26-year-old woman suffered a graze wound.
In the chaotic aftermath, another bystander was able to pick up the knife and walk off with it. Police put out a call for assistance in finding that man on Monday, and officials said they were able to track him down and recover the blade.
Earlier Friday, Mickles, appearing remotely from his hospital bed, pleaded not guilty to eight counts, including attempted aggravated assault on a police officer, menacing a police officer with a knife, criminal possession of a weapon and two counts related to turnstile jumping. The judge set his bail at $200,000.
Mickles’ lawyer, Jonathan Fink, said his client is in “very bad shape” after the shooting and is still unable to walk.
“It seems there’s a strong argument there was disproportionate force used by the police in this case,” said Fink, who had not yet seen the video. “The fact of the matter is my client is sitting in a hospital bed seriously injured.”
Police reform advocates said the shooting is the latest example of “reckless excessive force without consequence” in the police department under Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and former police captain.
“This horrific event that endangered dozens of transit users didn’t happen in a vacuum,” Loyda Colon, of the group Communities United for Police Reform, said in a statement Friday. “It happened because the mayor has invested in flooding officers into our subway system and communities to criminalize mental illness and poverty, rather than in making transit, housing, and services affordable and available to New Yorkers.”
Earlier this week, Adams said he believed the officers responded appropriately after viewing the videos. He also said he’d visited the 26-year-old woman in the hospital and spoke with her mother.
“I saw the steps those police officers implemented,” Adams told reporters Tuesday. “Over and over again, trying to reason with the perpetrator. And so some people said, ‘Well, you shouldn’t be enforcing fare evasion.’ No. This is not a city where any and everything goes.”
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Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.