NYPD reportedly shot and killed an unarmed man last night (Nov.20) in Brooklyn.
After 11:00 pm in Brooklyn’s Louis Pink Houses, police officers were doing a vertical patrol, which consists of them checking the floor of each building and taking the stairwell down. While two officers were walking down a dimly-lit seventh floor stairwell, they encountered 28-year-old Akai Gurley. One officer shot Gurley once in the chest and he was pronounced dead at Brookdale Hospital.
Gurley was with his girlfriend of almost four years, Melissa Butler, when he entered the stairwell. Butler says the officer shot Gurley without warning.
“They didn’t identify themselves,” Butler told the NY Daily News. “No nothing. They didn’t give no explanation. They just pulled a gun and shot him in the chest.”
Butler said Gurley later collapsed in a pool of blood on the fifth floor and had to seek help from residents because the two officers never checked to see if Gurley was okay.
A NYPD spokesperson said he was “not going to get into” why the officer shot the man. This incident is currently under investigation and NYPD Internal Affairs in involved as well.
Gurley left behind a two-year-old daughter.