
 
 A person helps one of those shot in the gunfire (Mr_Mookie) 
 
 Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters today that cops inadvertently wounded nine people yesterday after a disgruntled ex-employee killed his former boss near the Empire State Building. Kelly said the bystanders were not hit directly by police, but rather the officers' struck "flowerpots and other objects around, so ... their bullets fragmented and, in essence, that's what caused the wounds." Altogether, the two officers who confronted Jeffrey Johnson fired 16 rounds—one officer shot nine while another one shot seven. 
 
 Investigators believe at least 7 of those 16 rounds struck the gunman, according to NYPD Spokesman Paul Browne. Browne stressed that the officers were justified in using deadly force though: “They were approaching this man with a gun, and he turns on them, and he is eight feet away, pointing a gun right at them.” You can see surveillance video of the two officers confronting and shooting Johnson below. 
 
 Besides Johnson and victim Steve Ercolino, who were both killed, seven men and two women, including a Bronx mom and a North Carolina yoga instructor, were wounded on Friday—six of them were taken to Bellevue Hospital and three to New York Cornell Presbyterian with non-life threatening injuries. 
 
 Erica Solar, the 30-year-old Bronx mother of two, didn't realize she was shot until she felt a searing pain in her right leg: “She heard the shots,” her brother, Louis Lleras, told the News. “She didn’t know she was shot. It was crazy.” Media Rosario, from Queens, also didn't realize at first: “Everything happened so fast,” her sister-in-law, Auselis Rosario, told them. “The bullet went through her leg. She was crying to me.” 
 
 Robert Asika, 23, told the Times he was one of those people grazed by the bullets: “One of the cops shot me in my arm,” he said outside Bellevue Hospital Center, noting the gunman was moving toward him, and suggesting the officers “shot me probably trying to shoot him.” He said he wasn't mad at police: “I get they were doing their job, but they have to be a little more careful when they are aiming the gun at the suspect and not hit the innocent victims,” he said. 
 
 But Asika took on a harsher tone in an interview with the Guardian UK, accusing those cops of "shooting randomly", and hitting at least two other people: "If you're gonna aim try and aim perfectly. If you wanna aim at the target, you got to know what you're doing because it's the street," Asika said. "I could have been dead right now. I could have been dead." 
 
 Dr. David Klinger, a former Los Angeles police officer and current criminology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who has interviewed hundreds of police officers involved in shootings, told Buzzfeed that “no matter how realistic their training is, it can never prepare an officer for a shooting...There are professionals I work with who you would see that they're going to be able to stop a threat, will shoot the right number of bullets, and keep civilians as safe as possible,” says Klinger. “But unless this is something you train for on a daily or weekly basis, it's not something you can be truly prepared for.” 
 
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 Cop Who Shot At ESB Killer Previously Sued NYPD Over Quotas ||||| The encounter was breathtakingly brief: a surveillance video showed a gunman outside the Empire State Building on Friday pulling a pistol, pointing it at two police officers, their firing at him and his falling to the sidewalk. 
 
 All the yelling and cries of pain occurred out of camera view, just north of where the gunman, Jeffrey T. Johnson, collapsed and died: nine bystanders were struck, cradling bloody arms or lying on the sidewalks and curbs. 
 
 The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, confirmed on Saturday that all nine were wounded by police bullets, bullet fragments or shrapnel from ricochets. Mr. Kelly also confirmed that the shooter, Mr. Johnson, never fired another shot after killing a former co-worker, Steven Ercolino, moments earlier. 
 
 “We had a witness that said that Johnson fired at the police,” Mr. Kelly said Saturday. “But the final count of the shells, it appears that that is not the case.” 
 
 It was the second time in two weeks that police officers fired fusillades on the crowded streets of Midtown — 28 shots fired between the two episodes — and with it, there were once again questions of police protocol in urban settings. In the first shooting, no bystanders were struck when officers fired 12 shots at a man with a knife just south of Times Square. 
 
 The nanosecond speed at which a shooting plays out is followed by hours of analysis, second-guessing and study. 
 
 There is no national data on how often bystanders are struck by police bullets; Geoffrey P. Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina and an expert on the police use of force, said that hitting innocent civilians “doesn’t happen very often, but it happens.” 
 
 He added: “The rule of thumb is that you do not put civilians in the line of fire, but the rule of thumb is also that you don’t let a murderer get away.” 
 
 In many police shootings, stray shots are almost inevitable; a study based on New York’s annual firearms discharge reports indicated that officers hit their targets 34 percent of the time. 
 
 “It’s a tense situation, people are scared and moving,” Professor Alpert said. “It’s not like the movies, where you can shoot the gun out of his hand.” 
 
 The New York Police Department does include such episodes in its firearms discharge report. In 2010, for example, the police hit three bystanders in a shootout with a gunman; the year before, one bystander was struck when an officer struggled with a suspect who was trying to take his gun, and the gun fired. 
 
 Those encounters are some of the more trying for officers. 
 
 “One of the grim realities of police work,” reads a recent annual report, “is the terrible contradiction that can arise when it becomes necessary to protect life by using deadly physical force.” 
 
 The patrol guide, the department’s manual, states that officers should not fire their weapons when, “in their professional judgment, doing so will unnecessarily endanger innocent persons.” 
 
 In the shooting in Midtown, Mr. Kelly said on Friday that the two officers “had absolutely no choice.” In Mr. Johnson’s bag, officers found a clip loaded with six rounds, the police said. 
 
 The courts tend to come down on the side of officers in lawsuits brought from bystanders injured by police bullets. 
 
 A variety of outcomes after having been struck by a police bullet — physical, psychological, legal — can be found in a gun battle in Harlem in 2005 outside the restaurant Sylvia’s, another New York City landmark. 
 
 A suspect opened fire on officers, and five of them fired back 25 times, killing him. When it was over, a woman was kneeling in the street over her baby and bleeding from a gunshot wound to the elbow, and a 78-year-old man carrying groceries was stooped to help them. 
 
 “I got up,” the man, Garnold M. King, recalled in an interview, “and put my hand on my back and said, ‘Oh my God, I was shot too!’ ” 
 
 The Police Department was sued. One lawsuit, filed by the wounded woman, Tammy Johnson, went all the way to the Court of Appeals before being thrown out in 2010 in a 4-to-3 decision; the majority opinion stated that the officers “clearly had probable cause to fire their weapons at the suspect: they were in pursuit of an armed individual who opened fire on them on a public street, endangering the lives of the officers and the public.” New York City officials say they believe that finding strengthens their position in cases like these. 
 
 Ms. Johnson, then 39, had been playing with her 17-month-old daughter when she was struck. That moment changed her. She quickly moved to Atlanta. 
 
 “I didn’t feel safe in New York City anymore,” she said in an interview Friday. ||||| Story highlights A woman says she was chatting with Steven Ercolino when a man opened fire 
 
 Ercolino apparently filed a complaint fearing the gunman would try to kill him, police say 
 
 Police gunfire wounded nine people in Empire State Building shooting, commissioner says 
 
 Police: Investigation under way after officer shot nine rounds while another shot seven 
 
 On a busy Friday morning in Manhattan, nine pedestrians suffered bullet or fragment wounds after police unleashed a hail of gunfire at a man wielding a .45 caliber pistol who had just killed a former co-worker. 
 
 The officers unloaded 16 rounds in the shadow of the Empire State Building at a disgruntled former apparel designer, killing him after he engaged in a gunbattle with police, authorities said. 
 
 Three passersby sustained direct gunshot wounds, while the remaining six were hit by fragments, according to New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. All injuries were caused by police, he said Saturday. 
 
 One officer shot nine rounds and another shot seven. 
 
 Police identified the gunman as Jeffrey Johnson, 58, who was apparently laid off from his job as a designer of women's accessories at Hazan Import Co. last year. 
 
 Johnson, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard in the mid-1970s, had two rounds left in his pistol. It holds eight, Kelly said. 
 
 Police identified the slain co-worker as Steven Ercolino, 41, who had apparently filed a prior complaint against his assailant, claiming that he thought Johnson would eventually try to kill him. 
 
 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, center, and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly brief reporters on the Empire State Building shooting Friday, August 24. Two people were killed, including the suspected shooter, and nine others wounded, police said. Authorities shot the gunman, whom they described as a disgruntled former employee of a business near the landmark skyscraper. Hide Caption 1 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – Law enforcement, including the FBI and New York police, are at the scene Friday in a photo from CNN iReporter Vladimir Dusio. Hide Caption 2 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – A New York police officer keeps watch near the crime scene Friday. Authorities closed several streets around Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street, snarling traffic in the heart of Manhattan. Hide Caption 3 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – FBI agents gather at the scene, which some witnesses said sparked memories of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Authorities said the shooting was not related to terrorism. Hide Caption 4 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – New York police confer at the shooting scene. Hide Caption 5 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – A New York police officer directs pedestrians near the crime scene Friday. The Empire State Building is one of New York's best-known tourist attractions. Hide Caption 6 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – Police tape marks off the scene of Friday's shooting outside the Empire State Building. Hide Caption 7 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – Law enforcement officers stand near the covered body of the suspected shooter on Fifth Avenue. The man opened fire outside the building's Fifth Avenue entrance, triggering a gunbattle with police, authorities said. Hide Caption 8 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – A shooting victim lies covered on the ground at West 33rd Street. Hide Caption 9 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – FBI authorities gather near a body outside the Empire State Building. Hide Caption 10 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – Law enforcement at the scene of the shooting. Hide Caption 11 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – Vladimir Dusio, an iReporter who says he lives across the street from the Empire State Building, photographed police at the scene Friday. Hide Caption 12 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – Kelly Wilson, another iReporter, captured this image of the crowd gathering near the shooting scene. Hide Caption 13 of 14 Photos: Shooting at the Empire State Building Shooting at the Empire State Building – Police closed down the streets near the Empire State Building, which attracts 3.6 million visitors a year. Hide Caption 14 of 14 
 
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 Both men had filed harassment complaints against each other in April 2011, Kelly added. 
 
 Ercolino was listed as a vice president of sales at Hazan Import Corp., according to his LinkedIn profile. 
 
 "It's not something that should happen to a loving person like that," said his brother, Paul. "He's going to be so missed by everybody. He was a light of so many lives." 
 
 His longstanding dispute with the gunman "apparently centered on the fact that Ercolino was not selling -- at least in Johnson's opinion -- as much of his product ... as he wanted him to," Kelly said. 
 
 The suspect lost his job last year at Hazan "as a result of downsizing" but continued to return to the company regularly, engaging in "a confrontation with Ercolino virtually every time he went back." 
 
 The violence erupted Friday morning just as visitors began to queue up to ascend the famous New York skyscraper in one of Manhattan's busiest neighborhoods. 
 
 Six of the injured were treated and released at hospitals by Friday evening, while three others remained hospitalized, Kelly added. 
 
 One of those wounded, Erica Solar, was on her way to get a cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts when a bullet tore through the back of her leg, her brother said. The Manhattan receptionist is being treated at the city's Bellevue Hospital. 
 
 Others like Robert Asika, a 23-year-old city tour guide, were on their way to work and got caught in the crossfire. 
 
 "When I turned around, I saw a guy reach in his suit and he pulled out a gun," he told CNN affiliate WCBS-TV . "I guess he shot at the police officer. And the police officer shot him. And one of them shot me in the arm, and I fell." 
 
 Irene Timan recalled to CNN affiliate WABC how she was walking down West 33rd Street and chatting with Ercolino on Friday morning, when she spotted Johnson. 
 
 "I was like, 'Oh my God, that's Jeff Johnson.' And I was like, 'He's going to kill him, he's going to kill him, I know he's going to kill him,'" said Timan, who knew there was "bad blood" between Johnson and Ercolino but didn't know why. 
 
 Then, as Ercolino was talking to Timan in mid-sentence, Johnson fired at him -- "right next to me," she recalled. 
 
 Kelly, the police commissioner, said that Johnson -- who was wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase as he waited -- shot Ercolino once in the head and then in the torso. 
 
 An emotional Timan said Saturday that she has been replaying the incident "over and over in my mind. And I thought, 'Maybe you could have kicked the gun out of his hand and Steve would have only gotten shot once instead of five or six times.' ... I just ran, I didn't know what else to do." 
 
 Johnson then walked east, before eventually turning north. A construction worker was among those who dashed after the gunman after the initial gunshots. Eventually, the worker alerted two police officers in front of the Empire State Building that the suspect "just killed a man around the corner," Kelly said. 
 
 The police commissioner said the suspect pulled his gun out of his briefcase as the officers approached, pointing at them. The officers then fatally shot Johnson. 
 
 A brief surveillance video released Friday night by police shows the man walking behind a large planter on a busy street. He appears to point something as two officers approach, coming to within a few feet of him. Then, as bystanders run in all directions, the man falls abruptly to the ground after apparently being shot. 
 
 Witnesses said police shot Johnson at least three times. 
 
 "I heard the gunshots," said Anika Basu, who was on a bus near the building when the shooting happened. "I looked toward the left and saw three people fall. ... The whole entire crosswalk emptied and people were running. 
 
 When she heard the shots and saw people running, this time toward her, Timan said she feared Johnson was "going on a shooting spree." 
 
 "And I really thought he was coming back for me," she said. 
 
 Police say Johnson used a semiautomatic handgun and was carrying extra ammunition in his briefcase. He purchased the weapon legally in 1991 in Florida but did not have a permit to carry it in New York City. 
 
 The former Manhattan resident did not appear to have had a criminal record, but authorities were still checking, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. 
 
 Johnson's neighbor, Gisela Casella, described him as a quiet animal lover whose death left her "shocked." 
 
 "He was the nicest guy. He must have snapped or something. I don't know," she said. 
 
 His landlord, Guillermo Suarez, said he lived alone and that he'd seen Johnson leave the building around 8 a.m. in a suit. 
 
 By around 9 a.m., the shootings had prompted local and federal authorities to close several streets around Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street, snarling traffic in the heart of Manhattan. 
 
 The Empire State Building is one of the most famous skyscrapers in the world and one of New York's best-known tourist attractions. 
 
 Each year, about 4 million people visit the building's two observation decks. At more than 1,453 feet tall, the landmark building reaches more than a quarter-mile into the sky.
– NYPD chief Ray Kelly confirmed today that all nine bystanders wounded in yesterday's shooting near the Empire State Building were injured by police bullets, reports CNN. The two officers who approached Jeffrey Johnson fired 16 rounds after he pulled his gun on them at point-blank range, and authorities think at least seven rounds hit Johnson, reports Gothamist. (See surveillance video of the shooting here.) “We recovered whole bullets from two of the victims," Kelly said. "Actually, we think a total of the three out of the nine bystanders were struck with bullets, the rest were struck with fragments of some sort.” Of the nine, six were treated and released from local hospitals by this morning. The other three were in stable condition, reports the New York Times. It remains unclear whether Johnson got off any rounds himself after pointing his gun at police. (Click to read details emerging about the shooter.)