Police were called to the Crown Heights neighborhood at about 4:40 p.m. Wednesday after three people called 911 describing a black man in a brown jacket pointing what was described as a silver gun at people on the street, the New York Police Department’s Chief of Department Terence Monahan said at a briefing Wednesday evening. New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation into the death of a black man who was allegedly pointing a metal pipe at police officers in Brooklyn when they shot and killed him Wednesday.Schneiderman's press secretary, Amy Spitalnick, made the announcement Thursday via Twitter , adding that "we're committed to conducting an independent, comprehensive, and fair investigation. On Wednesday afternoon, April 4, New York City police officers fatally shot and killed Shaeed Vassell, which resulted in reports of outrage among dozens of people in the Brooklyn neighborhood where the shooting occurred. "The suspect took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at the approaching officers, two of whom were in uniform," NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said at a news conference, adding that they had received multiple 911 calls from onlookers. The officers believed the suspect was holding a firearm, a senior police official told a news conference on Wednesday, and three plainclothes officers and one uniformed officer fired 10 shots. “There’s a guy walking around the street, he looks like he’s crazy but he’s pointing something at people that looks like a gun and he’s pulling the trigger,” one of the callers said. The shooting — which followed a similar incident that sparked protests in Sacramento and which came on the 50th anniversary of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr's assassination — is the latest in a string of killings by police that has sparked a nationwide debate on violence by law enforcement.
Hundreds protest the Wednesday fatal shooting of Saheed Vassell by police in Brooklyn, New York, after a pipe he was holding was mistaken for a gun.