Wed, 22, May, 2024, 2:15 am

A Naked Man, a Frantic 911 Call, a Deadly Police Encounter

A Naked Man, a Frantic 911 Call, a Deadly Police Encounter

Selina McNeal called the police just before 2 a.m. on Wednesday because the superintendent of her apartment building was screaming obscenities and breaking glass in the hallway. She briefly opened her door and spotted him, completely naked, she said.

Minutes later, eight uniformed police officers arrived, pouring out of an elevator. As Ms. McNeal hid under the bed, she heard a struggle and officers yelling, “Shoot him! Shoot him!” Then came a series of shots. “Pop, pop, pop, pop,” she said.

In a matter of seconds, the police officers shot and killed the superintendent, who they said had pointed a gun at them. One officer grappled with the naked man before the shooting started and was shot in the chest during the struggle, the police said. His bulletproof vest stopped the slug.

It was unclear whether the injured officer, Christopher Wintermute, had been shot by the building’s superintendent or by his fellow officers during the fight. But the killing of the man, Victor Hernandez, 29, was the fifth deadly shooting by the New York police in a month.

Mr. Hernandez, a father of two and the son of a police officer, had become the building’s superintendent fairly recently, his family members and neighbors said. Ms. McNeal said that before she called 911, Mr. Hernandez had been yelling in the hall for about 20 minutes, making vulgar threats about a woman.

The police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, said the officers arrived at about 1:50 a.m. and fanned out to search the second-floor hallway of the building, at 2785 Frederick Douglass Boulevard. One of them — later identified as Officer Wintermute — encountered the naked man, who pointed a 9-millimeter pistol at the officer, Mr. O’Neill said.

“A violent struggle immediately began and shots were fired,” the commissioner said, noting that he had reviewed footage recorded on the officers’ body cameras.

Officer Wintermute yelled for help as he struggled with Mr. Hernandez and other officers opened fire, hitting the superintendent several times, the commissioner said. Officials have not said if the gun Mr. Hernandez was carrying was loaded or if he had fired it.

Ms. McNeal said that when she briefly opened the door and saw Mr. Hernandez, she did not see a weapon in his hands. “I saw something that looked like a laptop or a tablet,” she said.

During the shooting, Ms. McNeal said, she was hiding under her bed in tears. After the shots rang out, she heard officers shout, “Watch the fire.” Shortly afterward, she said she heard them yelling at one another, “Where is the gun?”

After the confrontation ended, Ms. McNeal again opened the door and saw Mr. Hernandez lying on the floor face up. The police later told her that what she thought was a tablet was actually a firearm.

“I’m still crying,” Ms. McNeal said. “I close my eyes and it’s all I can see and hear.”

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