Officer shoots woman holding knife in South Jamaica home, police say

A woman was shot and wounded by a police officer late Friday, Oct. 23, inside a South Jamaica, Queens, house where officers had gone after 911 callers described a break-in and a stabbing. Police said she came toward officers holding a knife. She is in stable condition, according to the NYPD.

What police say happened on 149th Street

Around 9:44 p.m., officers from the 113th Precinct arrived at the home, which sits on the stretch of 149th Street running from 133rd Avenue to North Conduit Avenue. For several minutes they knocked at the front and back doors and got no response. Before long, an injured man and a second man came to a window on the second floor. The injured man told officers his uncle had stabbed him, NYPD Chief of Patrol Philip Rivera said. With the uncle still downstairs, the man said, he had no way to reach the entrance and let police in.

Emergency service units and hostage negotiators were called in. Next, a woman came to a window one floor higher. Saying she was unable to reach the ground floor, she tossed keys down to the officers. They used them on a rear door, broke through a second door while screams sounded inside, and went up to a small bedroom on the third floor. There, two men and a woman were struggling on the floor.

Officers told all three to put their hands up. The men did. Rivera said the woman, who had thrown the keys minutes earlier, held her right hand down and moved toward them with a knife. “She was within several feet of the officers when an officer discharged his firearm, striking her,” he said. One officer then fired a Taser, and another took the knife away.

Injuries and the Force Investigation Division probe

After officers carried her downstairs and gave first aid, she was taken to Jamaica Hospital. Three men in the house had knife wounds. The 48-year-old had a slash to his right pinky finger, the 39-year-old a wound to his right arm and the 23-year-old a wound to his left shoulder. All are expected to survive, police sources said. Several officers went to hospitals for routine evaluation.

Everyone inside the house was acquainted, Rivera said, though investigators had yet to work out how they were connected. Police said they do not think the woman who was shot carried out the break-in or the stabbing that led to the 911 calls. Two knives were recovered. Officers’ body-worn cameras captured the shooting, which the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division is now examining. Events inside the home before police got there remain under investigation.

What it means for you

Because an officer’s gunshot struck a person and body-worn cameras recorded it, NYPD policy calls for the footage to be released within 30 days of the Oct. 23 shooting, which puts the deadline at about Nov. 22, according to the New York City Mayor’s Office.