An NYPD officer shot and wounded a 911 caller during an “extremely fast-moving” confrontation Sunday shortly after a man tried to swipe the caller’s air conditioner, police said.
Cops were called to the second-floor apartment on E. 148th St. near Courtlandt Ave. in Mott Haven around 5:40 p.m. by a 32-year-old man who said someone was trying to remove the cooling unit, police said.
But when officers arrived, they couldn’t find the 911 caller, and began to walk down the stairs in an “extremely tight stairwell” to the first floor, Deputy Chief Rohan Griffith of the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division said at a news conference Sunday night.
As two female officers approached the first-floor landing, they spotted a man coming up the staircase from a side entrance with a kitchen knife in hand.
“One officer gave the male verbal commands, telling him to, ‘Wait! Wait! Wait!’ and also telling him to ‘Drop it! Drop it!’ while also putting her hand up to motion for him to stop,” Griffith said.
When the man continued to “swiftly approach” the officers, one fired her weapon, striking the man in the torso, he added.
Police believe the caller was confronting the air conditioner thief in the building’s side courtyard right before he ran into the stairwell and encountered the cops.
Griffith said police are still searching for the would-be thief, who remained “unidentified” late Sunday.
