NEW YORK – Footage of two New York City police officers opening fire at a subway station as they confronted a man holding a knife shows they shot 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 passengers.
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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 NYPD’s version of events is a gross mischaracterization of what we see on that video,” said Nick Liakas, an attorney representing Delpeche’s family. “There was no need for any bullets to fly in the subway station, especially in a setting where the officers put innocent bystanders at risk. And it resulted in Gregory getting shot in the back of the head.”
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 a 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.
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.” The officers repeatedly implore him to show them his hands. He tells them to leave him alone.
When a train pulls into the station, Mickles backs onto it. The officers follow him on. They repeatedly say “put it down” and then fire their Tasers, which 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.
When the officers pull 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 fire multiple shots. Mickles falls into train 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.”
In addition to Mickles and Delpeche, one of the officers was wounded in the shooting. A 26-year-old woman suffered a graze wound.
Earlier Friday, Mickles, appearing remotely from his hospital bed, pleaded not guilty to charges including attempted aggravated assault on a police officer, menacing an officer, weapons possession and evading his subway fare. The judge set his bail at $200,000.
Mickles' lawyer, Jonathan Fink, said his client is in “very bad shape” and 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.
Police reform advocates condemned the shooting.
“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 in the week, Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and former police captain, said he’d seen the videos and that the officers should be commended for showing a "great level of restraint.”
“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.”
After the footage was released, his office released a statement that was less effusive, noting that the NYPD’s initial review found that shooting took place after Mickles “brandished a dangerous weapon and put officers’ lives at risk.”
“While the formal review continues, and out of respect for that process, I will avoid commenting any further,” Adams said.
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Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.