NYPD releases video, 911 calls to defend shooting of pipe-wielding black suspect

Surveillance video from April 5, 2018, shows Saheed Vassell brandishing a metal object before being fatally shot by police.

 (Associated Press via NYPD)

In an effort to calm growing anger and heated street protests, New York City police on Thursday released several security videos and 911 transcripts from the harrowing minutes leading up to officers’ decision to fatally shoot a mentally ill black suspect in Brooklyn.

The videos appeared to support the NYPD’s claims that the man on Wednesday evening was repeatedly thrusting a metal object that looked like a gun into the faces of several people — including a woman holding the hand of her child.

One clip shows the man holding the object in what police described as a “two-handed shooting stance” as officers arrived.

Four plainclothes and two uniformed officers responded, unleashing 10 shots that left Saheed Vassell, 34, dead. The city’s medical examiner found he was hit seven to nine times, including one shot to the head.

His weapon turned out to be an L-shaped section of pipe, which several 911 callers had told operators resembled a firearm.

The shooting prompted two nights of protests among many who felt police should have known that Vassell, a fixture in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, had emotional problems.

Protesters suggested the police shooting of a pipe-wielding Brooklyn man this week was murder.

 (Associated Press)

On Thursday night, protesters marched to NYPD’s 71st precinct and demanded the release of the names of the officers involved in the shooting — and their badges.

“They need to lose their jobs and they need to be put in jail – the same as if someone kills a cop,” Ramel Johnson, 38, told The Guardian. “It’s become clear they have no respect for human life.”

Protesters were undeterred Thursday night by the release of video confirming that the slain suspect was behaving in a threatening manner.

 (Reuters)

But Mayor Bill De Blasio didn’t blame the cops, and said they had no information that the person they were confronting was mentally ill.

GRAPHIC VIDEO: PIPE-WIELDING STUDENT SHOT BY COP AT UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

“It’s a tragedy because a man with a profound mental health problem … was doing something that people perceived to be a threat to the safety of others,” de Blasio said at a news conference.

Protesters quickly blamed the police and said the officer-involved shooting was unnecessary.

 (Associated Press)

“What we have seen from the images that are publicly available, people in the community thought he had a weapon and was aiming it at residents,” the mayor said. “That’s the kind of calls, multiple calls, that NYPD received.”

According to the released transcripts, one caller to 911 reported that Vassell “looks like he’s crazy but he’s pointing something at people that looks like a gun.”

“Where is the gun?” a dispatcher asked.

“His hand,” the caller replied.

Police said the slain suspect pointed this pipe at officers in a threatening manner before being killed.

 (Associated Press)

In police radio traffic posted online, dispatchers directing officers to the scene said 911 callers were reporting only that a person was pointing a gun at people. After the shooting, the officers can be heard frantically calling for dispatchers to send an ambulance.

NYPD SAYS SLAIN BROOKLYN SUSPECT WAS IN ‘SHOOTING STANCE’ 

The material released by the department didn’t answer questions about whether the officers had identified themselves or ordered the victim to drop the object before they opened fire. 

At a vigil Thursday night, Vassell’s mother, Lorna, said her son “came from a good home” and that he was not homeless.

“He was like a child. … This kid didn’t bother nobody.”

- Family friend Berrest Biggs

Vassell’s father, Eric, told reporters that his son had been hospitalized several times for psychiatric problems, some involving encounters with the police, but that he was polite and kind.

“Police had a choice. They always have a choice. They should not train them to kill. They should train them to protect life, to save life,” Eric Vassell told WABC-TV.

The slain suspect accosted numerous people before apparently threatening officers, surveillance footage shows.

 (Associated Press)

A tense crowd gathered after the shooting, with some people shouting at officers and decrying the killing as another example of an unarmed black man dying at the hands of police officers who overreacted.

A family friend, Berrest Biggs, said he learned of the shooting through social media.

“I said, ‘Is that Saheed?’” Biggs said. “He was like a child. … This kid didn’t bother nobody.”

New York state’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, announced that he would investigate the shooting.

Under an executive order issued by the governor in 2015, the attorney general has the power to act as a special prosecutor in cases involving police killings of unarmed people.

Schneiderman’s spokeswoman, Amy Spitalnick, promised “an independent, comprehensive and fair investigation.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Gregg Re is an editor for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @gregg_re.

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Exclusive: San Diego gun store employee talks about sale to YouTube shooter

SAN DIEGO — Three months before Nasim Aghdam shot three YouTube employees and then herself, she walked into The Gun Range — a gun store and firing range about 22 miles from the San Diego home she shared with her grandmother — and purchased a semiautomatic handgun.

Aghdam purchased the 9mm Smith Wesson pistol on Jan. 2 and picked up the weapon after the mandatory 10-day waiting period had expired, according to a source. Already seething over YouTube’s crackdown on videos she routinely posted, Aghdam took the gun home with her on Jan. 16, the same day the internet giant announced a bigger revenue crackdown on content creators like her.

Manny Mendoza, the store’s rangemaster, confirmed the purchase Thursday afternoon but said the transaction was not memorable.

“It’s not like she stood out,” the retired law enforcement officer said. “I wish we could look into someone’s soul.”

Mendoza said he didn’t know if Aghdam purchased ammunition or accessories during her transaction and he said to his knowledge she had never practiced at one of the store’s 13 shooting lanes.

“It’s as tragic as can be,” he said of Tuesdays’ shooting at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno. He said he wasn’t sure if his store — a long nondescript beige brick building next to an auto dealership, with palm trees surrounding the front entrance — had been contacted by law enforcement but said they would cooperate in any investigation.

In October, the San Diego store advertised on its Facebook page a “12 Guns of Christmas” sale for the same model purchased by Aghdam, selling them for $399.99. On Thursday evening, customers streamed in and out carrying rifle cases, and an assortment of shotguns and rifles for sale were on display behind the counter.

Aghdam’s family has insisted that they told police she was upset at YouTube for censoring her videos. Police have said Aghdam’s likely motive for Tuesday’s shooting at the San Bruno headquarters was her anger at the company’s recent policies that cracked down on some content and made it harder for people to benefit from the company’s ad revenue sharing program. A slew of videos and social media posts show her disdain for the company’s efforts to “demonetize” and filter her quirky vegan, workout, animal rights and dance videos.

She collected her gun the same day YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan and Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl announced in a blog post that the company was further tightening its rules and raising requirements for creators trying to make ad revenue off their videos. It was the culmination of a crackdown begun last year on controversial sites and in the immediate aftermath of scathing criticism following YouTube star Logan Paul publishing a video showing a dead body in a Japanese forest.

Aghdam family last saw her on March 31, and they reported her missing on April 2. Mountain View police spotted her car at 1:40 a.m. Tuesday morning parked in a Walmart parking lot, Aghdam asleep inside. They spoke to her, and also to her family in Southern California, and have said that nothing she or her family members said aroused their concern that she was a danger to herself or others. They did not know she had a gun.

She took target practice at a local gun range later that morning, then drove to YouTube headquarters on Cherry Lane in San Bruno, walked into a company patio area and shot three people before killing herself, police have said.

While the total number of shots she fired is not determined, San Bruno Police Commander Geoff Caldwell said Aghdam fired “several” and blasted through at least one magazine and reloaded with a second before firing again.

“Halfway through she exchanged magazines and continued shooting until she turned the gun on herself,” Caldwell said. One spent magazine was found at the scene, along with the gun and the second loaded magazine, he said.

California law limits gun magazines to 10 rounds each, but Caldwell said he did not know if Aghdam’s were legal. Her handgun had a 17-bullet capacity, according to Smith Wesson.

The gun was registered in her name, Caldwell said. To purchase the firearm, Aghdam would have had to pass a background check that reviewed any criminal history, DMV records, outstanding warrants, restraining orders and mental health holds.

San Bruno police would not release the name of the gun range where Aghdam took target practice Tuesday, but Caldwell said the business reached out to authorities after seeing news reports of the shooting and recognizing the woman who had been there a short time earlier.

Several San Bruno police officers on Wednesday spent nearly two hours at Jackson Arms, a South San Francisco range. It opens at 11 a.m. and is about a 10-minute drive from YouTube headquarters.

A 2012 bankruptcy record indicates Aghdam’s father Ismail owns two handguns and one rifle.

On Thursday, the lone hospitalized YouTube employee, a 36-year-old man, had his condition upgraded to fair. The other two gunshot victims, a 32-year-old woman and a 27-year-old woman, have been released.

At YouTube, a worker could be seen tearing down the police tape that had cordoned off an entrance to the outdoor patio area where Aghdam opened fire. The company has vowed to beef up its security worldwide after the shooting.

Staff writers Robert Salonga and David DeBolt contributed to this report.

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