The cops thought they were going on a routine call for service — a distressed Brooklyn mom had reported her troubled son was acting erratically in their apartment.
Instead, they had mere seconds to make a decision that ended in tragedy.
Police officials said the confrontation that led to the death of Dwayne Jeune, 32, began when his mother Dulcina, 69, called 911 at about 12:20 p.m. Monday from their East Flatbush home.
The officials offered a more detailed account Tuesday of the encounter, as the NYPD faced criticism from Jeune’s father, neighbors and an advocacy group.
Dulcina Jeune told the 911 operator her son was acting oddly and had had previous psychiatric episodes. But she said Dwayne Jeune was unarmed and had not been violent, NYPD Chief of Patrol Terence Monahan said.
Police on the scene where Dwayne Jeune was shot and killed in a Flatbush Gardens apartment.
(Todd Maisel/New York Daily News)
Four officers from the 67th Precinct arrived at the fifth-floor apartment on New York Ave. in the Flatbush Gardens complex.
Jeune’s mother let the officers in and then ran to the rear screaming, “He’s back here! He’s back here!”
Officer Adam Gierlachowski, 31, was the first cop into the apartment, Monahan said. He was armed with a Taser.
With the officers standing in the living room, Jeune — armed with a silver kitchen knife — came running toward Gierlachowski who fired his Taser as he backpedaled, Monahan said.
Police said that Dwayne Jeune was wielding a knife when he came at cops.
(Facebook)
The Taser darts hit Jeune in the chest and one arm, but had no effect, Monahan said.
Jeune knocked Gierlachowski to the floor, and straddled him while still holding the knife.
Officer Miguel Gonzalez, on the force for four years, then fired five rounds, striking Jeune in the chest.
He and another cop then lifted Jeune off Gierlachowski, who suffered a concussion, sources said.
A bullet hole is shown after a police shooting at 1370 Newkirk Ave. in Brooklyn.
(Obtained by Daily News)
Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Tuesday there are a number of possible reasons why the Taser was not effective.
“One of them could be the clothing, one of them that the spread of the darts is not wide enough,” he said.
NYPD protocol known as the “isolate and contain” tactic states that if the person can be penned safely into an area, cops are supposed to call the Emergency Service Unit.
In this case, since the call didn’t come over as involving a violent person, ESU was not brought in.
Jeune’s mother Dulcina at the scene of the shooting.
(Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News)
“ESU monitors all emotionally-disturbed-person jobs, and if they’re needed, if it becomes violent, then they’re called in,” O’Neill said. “They were not in the process of responding.”
Three of the four officers were trained in the NYPD’s crisis intervention course, which instructs cops how to handle emotionally disturbed people, Monahan said. Gonzalez has not yet received the training.
In January, the city Department of Investigation reported that just 4,700 officers, or 13% of all NYPD cops, had received the crisis training. The Investigation Department also found that though the department gets 400 psychiatric-related calls a day, there is no system in place to ensure that cops with the training are dispatched.
Gonzalez was previously involved in the shooting of an armed disturbed man on Oct. 26.
When the police officers entered the apartment, they said they were charged at by a man with a large carving knife.
(DCPI/DCPI)
In that incident outside a Brooklyn laundromat, he shot and wounded Davonte Pressley, 23, who was brandishing a kitchen knife. Pressley remains in jail.
O’Neill said that shooting appeared to be within guidelines. Even so, he said the NYPD would examine why Gonzalez had two such shootings in nine months.
The dead man’s father, Vibert Jeune, 73, said police made the situation worse.
“My son wasn’t a bad person,” he said as his wife sobbed by his side. “He had his problems, but you call upon those you believe will help you, and all they do is to kill.”
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Jack Thorne, the British scribe who wrote the upcoming Julia Roberts-Jacob Tremblay movie Wonder, has been tapped to work on the Star Wars installment that is to be directed by Colin Trevorrow.
Trevorrow and his writing partner, Derek Connolly, have been working on the script, but sources say a fresh set of eyes was needed. It is unclear how extensive the rewrites will be.
Rian Johnson wrote and directed Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the eighth installment of the sci-fi fantasy that opens Dec. 15.
Force Awakens stars Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac are expected to return — but you never know who a Star Wars movie may kill off, so don’t get too comfortable — with the ninth installment eyeing a production start in January 2018.
The movie has a scheduled release date of May 24, 2019.
Thorne is the creator or co-creator of several British television shows, dramas and thrillers, including The Fades, The Cast-Offs, The Last Panthers and National Treasure.
While those don’t sound like the Star Wars wheelhouse, his writing on two more recent programs brings him closer: His Dark Materials, BBC’s adaptation of the fantasy by Philip Pullman, and Philip K. Dick’s Electric Sheep for Channel 4.
He is repped by UTA.
Kim Masters contributed to this report.
Aug. 1, 5:03 p.m. Updated to reflect that the script for Episode IX is not based on a treatment by Rian Johnson.
