NEW YORK — All nine people wounded during a dramatic confrontation between police and a gunman outside the Empire State Building were struck by bullets fired by the two officers, police said Saturday, citing ballistics evidence.
The veteran patrolmen who opened fire on the suit-wearing gunman, Jeffrey Johnson, had only an instant to react when he whirled and pointed a .45-caliber pistol as they approached him from behind on a busy sidewalk.
Officer Craig Matthews shot seven times. Officer Robert Sinishtaj fired nine times, police said. Neither had ever fired their weapons before on a patrol.
The volley of gunfire felled Johnson in just a few seconds and left nine other people bleeding on the sidewalk.
In the initial chaos Friday, it wasn’t clear whether Johnson or the officers were responsible for the trail of wounded, but based on ballistic and other evidence, “it appears that all nine of the victims were struck either by fragments or by bullets fired by police,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters on Saturday at a community event in Harlem.
He reiterated that the officers appeared to have no choice but to shoot Johnson, whose body had 10 bullet wounds in the chest, arms and legs.
“I believe it was handled well,” Kelly said.
The officers confronted Johnson as he walked, casually, down the street after gunning down a former co-worker on the sidewalk outside the office they once shared. The shooting happened at 9 a.m., as the neighborhood bustled with people arriving for work.
The gunman and his victim, Steve Ercolino, had a history of workplace squabbles before Johnson was laid off from their company, Hazan Import Corp., a year ago. At one point, the two men had grappled physically in an elevator.
John Koch, the property manager at the office building where the men worked, said security camera footage showed the two pushing and shoving. The tussle ended when Ercolino, a much larger man, pinned Johnson against the wall of the elevator by the throat, Koch said. Ercolino let him go after a few moments, and the two men went their separate ways.
“They didn’t like each other,” Koch said.
After shooting Ercolino, Johnson, an eccentric T-shirt designer and avid bird-watcher who wore a suit everyday, even when photographing hawks in Central Park, walked away as if nothing had happened.
Alerted by a construction worker, officers Matthews and Sinishtaj gave chase as Johnson rounded a corner and walked along Fifth Avenue, in front of the landmark skyscraper.
A security videotape from the scene shows several civilians — including three sitting on a bench only a few feet away — scattering as the officers opened fire.
Police have determined that three people were struck by whole bullets — two of which were removed from victims at the hospital — and the rest were grazed “by fragments of some sort,” Kelly said.
Three people remained hospitalized, all in stable condition, police said.
Both Matthews, 39, and Sinishtaj, 40, joined the nation’s largest police department 15 years ago.
Matthews had drawn attention earlier this year by filing a lawsuit against the New York Police Department that accused his superiors of unfairly punishing him for not meeting arrest quotas. A judge threw out the complaint.
There was no immediate response to a message left with the union representing the two officers.
The shooting didn’t deter tourists from flocking to the Empire State Building as usual on Saturday.
Patricia Flynn, 57, a retired schoolteacher, visited the building’s peak with her elderly mother, who once worked in the skyscraper as a secretary.
“But I didn’t tell her what happened,” said Flynn, adding that her mother was unaware of Friday’s shooting. “And she really enjoyed the view.”
A group of 31 tourists from all over France held a meeting Friday night at their nearby hotel to decide whether to cancel their planned Empire State Building visit.
“We were scared, and we thought it was a risk,” said Catherine Krukar, 38, a teacher.
But in the end, they went ahead with the visit, she said after descending from the observation tower.
“We know it can happen anywhere, and we wanted to see the Empire State Building,” Krukar said. “It was beautiful!”
Contributing to this report from New York were David B. Caruso, Colleen Long and the AP News Research Center.
It is a damn shame the innocent bystanders got hurt. But I imagine that it would have been worse if they had risked more deaths by not stopping the gunman.
Personally, I would not be any happier knowing I was stot by police, rather than villians. I suppose that is not a universal thought.
The gunman was only interested in shooting the one person, so why would there have been more deaths?
And the police could be sure he only wanted to kill one person because….?
Except for the fact that the gunman turned and pulled his gun out, or started to.
You know, it’s hard to criticize. So I won’t. But as an aside, these guys are supposed to be pro’s, the best of the best, and shooting bystanders sort of sounds as though they couldn’t hit their target. I mean really, all nine were hit by the police! I’m not saying I could do any better but of course I’m not a policeman either.
Interesting that you say you won’t criticize, and in the very next sentence, you criticize the actions of the two Police Officers. They were faced with an inordinately difficult scenario, under extreme stress, and reacted the best way they could. I dare say that the fact that 10 shots struck the assailant was damn good shooting.
There is a big difference between shooting at a paper target that can’t hurt you and being face to face with someone who is armed and can kill you. Most police officers will never use their gun on a human, that is a good thing, unlike TV, police shootings are not very common. When you are shooting at moving targets you can miss, the bullet goes someplace and that someplace can be a bystander. Firearms training like most training gets cut back to bare bones because of tight budgets. In the movies the bad guy gets shot once and drops, in real life people can be hit multiple times and keep moving. The adrenaline can keep someone with a fatal shot moving for a short time. Police are taught to shoot until the threat is stopped. Yes there were a lot of rounds fired some rounds hit others some splintered and then hit people. I am glad the only person killed by the police was the gunman. The officers will live with their decision for the rest of their lives. I hope the bystanders heal well and fast.
That’s another thing. Why did they shoot 19 or more bullets at one guy? Wouldn’t 2 or 3 have done the job?
They are taught to keep shooting until the threat is down.
True. When in doubt, empty the magazine, and if you’re not shooting you should be reloading. LOL
That is not how real life works. Many people have been shot multiple times and still continued their actions.
Depends where they are hit, and with what.
But in the case we are talking about 9mm only so it is pointless to mention any other firearm.
They are trained to shoot in two or three round berths and to shoot as long as the threat is there. They never know if someone is wearing body armor or not. As long as the gunman is up and moving he is a treat the officers and by standers. It’ not like TV, the shooter usually doesn’t know if the bullets are hitting the target or not. After their shift the cops want to go home to their families.
Depending on where the person is hit, how physically fit the person is and how much adreneline is flowing 2 or 3 bullets might not even slow a person down.
I don’t know what the NYC cops are carrying today. In many departments it is the 9 mm. I have yet to see a person with a gut shot, or a head shot from a nine do much of anything.
there is no excuse for hitting 9 bystanders.
Said by someone who has never fired a weapon on a crowded street or at a live target.
There is no excuse for hitting 9 bystanders, and that is the comment from someone who has returned fire against a live (human) target with innocent civilians preesent.
Most officers are not great shots to begin with and when you add all the other stress that goes into a gun fight it is easy to miss a target even a few feet in front of you. A lot of officers do not spend large amounts of time at the range. The majority of those with CFP spend more time at the range than officers do.
Just because they have a badge doesn’t mean they are an expert marksmen.
A New York State Police officer MUST spend at least ten hours a month at the shooting range. To get a promotion in most departments you must demonstrate proficiancy with firearms (including lomng guns) under stressful situations.
I am sure that the NYC One Police Plaza ad-men will attempt to spin this as a stress induced mistake, but it is my bet that the officers imagined there was more than one perp, and didn’t want the s4econd one getting in a shot at them. I do believe “self preservation” at the expense of innocents.
The NYC police Department goes nutty from time to time, there were the scandles of the late 60’s early 70’s, the failure to arrest white suspects when blacks were murdered in the 80’s, the sodomizing of an innocent with a nightstick in the 90’s, and now this terrorist act. (what else do you call the shooting of innocents?)
Everytime this happens, there are calls for a civilian revue board. Each time the Police Plaza higher-ups beat the idea down, saying “We are fully able to police our own.”
In Maine you are required to qualify once a year at the range. Some departments in the past missed that mark. All comes down to money. I think NYPD is around 35,000 officers strong now. Figure out 35,ooo x 100 rounds $20.00, that’s 700,000 dollars to qualify each officer just one time a year if they make it through with out additional training. Add in any overtime and you are looking at close to a million dollars. If the shoot more than once a year just do the math. So tell me if you think budgets have anything to do with training.
I know of no departments in this area that use firearms qualifications in promotions unless it is for a tact team position. You have to pass qualifications or you can’t work.
FYI New York City has has a Civilian Complaint Review Board since 1993
“All Civilian Agency
In 1993, after extensive debate
and public comment, Mayor David Dinkins and the New
York City
Council created the Civilian Complaint Review Board
in its
current, all-civilian form. The agency was granted
subpoena
power.”
The “civilian complaint review board” is NOT a civilian review board. The one in New York City accepts civilian comments, but rarely act on them. Police indiscretions are still the province of the internal affairs division. That is like an accused bank robber having a jury of all bank robbers.
being an expert marksman on the range doesn’t mean you’ll perform well under the stress of close quarters armed contact.
You are correct but I never stated it would. Even the best marksman can freeze during a high stress situation. Until it happens you have no clue how you are going to react but that is why you train and train some more. Some people thrive in high stress situations, others do not.
Hand guns are not very accurate outside of 10 meters even in the best of hands with no adreneline flowing.
You’re right. We like to think the police wouldn’t shoot if a citizen was in the line of fire.
The gunman was hit by 10 out of 16 shots and three vistims were hit by whole bullets, the rest were hit by fragments. I would say that that was pretty good shooting by the police on a crowded NYC street.
Imagine how much worse it will be if we let more and more civilians carry concealed weapons. The sound of a firecracker going off might spark a firestorm of ‘friendly fire.’
Step back from the insanity of the easy access to guns!
Well, handguns are very hard to get in New York State. Take VT for instance, where there is no law regarding concealed weapons, and access is very easy = low crime. Maine & NH both have easy access to firearms and gauranteed concealed carry (if you pass a background check) = low crime.
In fact violent crime is at an all time low in the US, After the demise of the assault weapons ban, and with the rise of gun owners rights nationwide.
What is on the rise is media hype surrounding any incident involving firearms. The incessant screeching of impending doom by wild gun toting vigilantes tends to cloud the minds of people who don’t bother to research the truth.
I think the media aspect of things is lost on many people. I don’t think things are any worse than they were many years ago, the difference is that media of all sorts is much more prevalent than it was 50+ years ago. In today’s world if something happens it is reported quickly and out there for someone on the other side of the world to see.
I agree; We used to get the local news, and big stories from the North-East region, now we have to hear about every murder from Bangor to Burma.
SpruceDweller it is obvious you have never hung out with those that do carry concealed firearms. We don’t run around like it is the wild west looking for a shoot out. Most of us have a high level situational awareness and we do our best to remove ourselves from dangerous situations before things escalate to the next level. My CFP is not a badge, I’m well aware of that and I’m not going to just start shooting blindly.
Who knew SpruceDweller would come out with that comment?
You are a fruit loop my friend.
I often find it hard to agree with you, BUT not this time. Double thumbs up on the fruit loop.
you anti-gunners say that bs all the time.
and yet, you’d probably be shocked to know that about 1 in 10 mainers has a cwp and carries. and no one has been shot here yet from “firecrackers”
If you want to play maybe. Maybe if the person he shot and killed first had had a gun he could of defended himself and NO other people would have been hurt, but the gunman.
Let’s see; the person standing next to the victim saw the gunman and didn’t even have time to push the victim out of the way (as she thought of doing), but had the victim a gun, he “could of” (sic) defended himself? Yeah, right.
Gunman shoots one, Police shoot nine… yet they will be hailed as heroes. I hope a lawsuit brings better training standards for NYPD officers to prevent this kind of potential mass murder.
Also, the article states the camera shows 3 civilians… everyone in the camera view is a civilian. Police officers are civilians as the term refers to non military personnel. Any definition that includes non military is a bastardization of the word. The proper distinction is citizen.
How d’you figure? Your appraisal of the situation is false. Read the story.
Funny how yesterday the headline was another “Mass Shooting” in large print, yet when the truth comes out it barely warrants a byline.
Hang the officers, the gunman shot one person and walked away, it would have been over! they over reacted, a whole bunch!!!
Does anyone know what someone who is agitated, with a gun, and has already killed someone is thinking? How does anyone know that he would have stopped with one victim? Maybe he had grudges against many people. The police would be criticized if they had not shot him and they are criticized because they did and innocent people got shot. Does anyone know that they would have done better is they were the police officers? It is easy to say what should have happened after the fact. I think it is progress that the NYPD acknowledged what really happened instead of maintaining the blue wall of silence that sometimes surrounds incidents like this.
yeah, it’s called shot placement.
They over reacted by protecting their lives or by trying to arrest a murder?
Haha, what are you supposed to do, stop him and ask him politely if he only intended to just shoot the one guy …. While he has the gun pointed RIGHT AT YOU . Geez man, you are shouting hang the cops, what in the world is the matter with you.
Super Petey will be the first to blame the fuzz..
I’m betting there is an extremely low percentage of LEO’s that could have had much of a different outcome faced with the same scenario. Most cops will never fire their sidearms(outside of training) in the course of their careers. An armed confrontation withing 20 feet of an active shooter on a crowded street? This is a seriously dynamic incident that called for immediate action. This incident did not allow the officers time to place well aimed shots from cover or concealment, but instead react rapidly in defense of their own lives. This was not a typical LEO’s are called to the scene and confront a suspect from defensive positions, this was truly close quarters combat. Few police officers have experienced multiple close quarters hand gun combat and thus have little to fall back on. Shooting for range proficiency is great for establishing fundamentals, but cannot be used to judge how an incident like this was handled.
I don’t know how it is in NY but in Maine many departments are now doing active shooting training as well as their yearly qualifications. Simunitions places the officer in a variety of situations with firearms that feel like department issue but shoot paint bullets. From what I’ve been told by a couple officers who’ve gone through it, it’s invaluable training because it’s as real as it can be without the fatal outcome. High heartbeat, raised blood pressure, increasing sweating, racing mind. These are the things one goes through in a shooting situation and these are what I’m told most officers feel when completing the situations in simunitions.
I believe it was handled well,” Kelly said.
And only 9 innocent bystanders shot! Oh yeah, handled really well!
Don’t you worry about those nine innocent bystanders. This is NYC. I will bet the lawsuits was filed before the band aid was applied. They will do just fine………….
…and how long did you live in New York?
Not true. Go and read how many were shot.
Read the story.
I guess that will be 9 future law suits for New York. Way to go!
I find this rather ironic,
the anti-gun people always say that citizens shouldn’t be armed, and should wait for the police when something bad happens.
they claim that the police are “highly trained” with guns
I wonder what they’ll say about this one…
That the reason that only 9 people were woundedon a busy NYC street was that the police were well trained and acted appropriately.
How many dead and wounded would there have been if all of the people on the street were armed?
Yeah right. If the NEW York Police took down the World Trade Center with two planes, some on this board would defend them. Law enforcement personnel are supposed to KNOW where ALL ttheir bullets will land BEFORE they shoot. Yeah it is a tough job, BUT if you can not do it correctly and NOT cause “collateral damage” don’t become a cop!
It’s GW Bush’s fault
Inappropiate …. but funny.
I just read all 36 comments. I can’t believe what I read. Talk about DAMN IF DO, DAMN IF YOU DON’T. The police defended them selves on a crowded street and nine people get hurt. If the police had done nothing and the gunman killed another dozen people. It would have been why aren’t the cops doing their job. This is not the policeman fault…..it’s the fault of the man who decided to kill another human being.
ugh
Ten out of 16 bullets hit the gunman, 3 civilians were hit with whole bullets and the remaining 6 were hit by bullet fragments. Pretty good shooting by the police if you ask me.
Watch the actual video of the confrontation on CNN then recomment. The gunman had the first draw on them only a few feet away witha .45. The cops put him down fast and no one else killed. Pretty good considering the area and congestion. Only 3 others shot. 6 were wounded by the flower pot fragments the bullets hit. It is a pretty intense video.
You should read the story before condemning the officers. Read it closely. Out of 16 shots at the gun-toting murderer, he took 10. Three people were injured through direct fire. Three others were “grazed” by fragments.
Think about it.
Of the 16 shots fired by both officers, the gunman took 10 hits.
Three passersby took 3 of those remaining 6 shots. The rest of the casualties were “grazed” not shot, by “fragments of some sorts.”
The “fragments” could have been scraps of spent bullets ricocheting off buildings, along with masonry.
Just 3 passersby took direct bullet wounds. Four others simply grazed. Considering the usual densely populated space of a New York City street where this took place, and understanding it as a gut buster for both officers – they did a great job.
OMG, it’s about time someone actually read what happen. All these poster on here screaming that they shot 9 people could not have payed attention. I think three people with bullet wounds that they will survive is pretty darn good considering how busy it is in front of the ESB and considering the police had just a split second to react.
Hearing it on TV, I thought there’d been another massacre. The headlines, and the comments of the NYC police chief leaned this way, too. However, reading the story gave a much clearer perspective on the incident. I agree with you. The two officers did a remarkable job. Firing 16 shots in the hub hub of NYC to down an armed murderer and accidently hitting 3 passersby is a credit to their marksmanship.
No disrespect to law enforcement but what happened to “stand down” “Lay down” clear the area etc….Its not like they didn’t have a “heads up”.
It was just last week’s news NOAA and Social Security law enforcement departments were ordering a huge amount of ammo…..even the media jumped on it. Here is an instance of why qualification is so required.
As i said then, it was practice and replenishment duty ammo. In a shootout we should all want law enforcement to place rounds on “center mass to instantly incapacitate the threat” To do that they’ve got to practice! In this instance there was collateral injuries from ricochets, misses, and round fragmentation. I’m curious, what were the police weapons and ammo? The bad guy had a .45
Do you mean to tell me that no one but the police had a firearm on them to deal with this threat? So many people are not prepared.
This headline is misleading. The police did not shoot 9 people. Two people shot, the rest were hit by shrapnel and splintered bullets that ricochet off planters and such. Media making things worse as usual. Now we also have our armchair quarterbacks and of course the police can’t do anything right crowd. I have an idea, become a cop, have a gunman point a gun at you and tell me that training AND self preservation doesn’t kick in. The two people that died were the gunman and his victim. That gunman aimed right at the police when they were within 3 feet of him…maybe someone could have stepped in and started singing Imagine and then he would have put down his gun, everyone could have held hands a swayed to profoundness of the moment.