Man armed with knife dies during police-involved shooting on Roosevelt Island: NYPD

Cops shot and killed a man armed with a knife during a close-quarters clash inside the lobby of a Roosevelt Island apartment building, authorities said Saturday.

The officers were responding to a call of a domestic disturbance inside the Main St. building on the East River island about 11:30 p.m. when the 21-year-old suspect charged out of a lobby elevator, Assistant Chief Christine Bastedenbeck, the commanding officer of Queens North, said.

Three of the four responding officers had just stepped onto one elevator as the emotionally disturbed man ran out of the other, Bastedenbeck said.

“(He) moved quickly to the officer securing the door, swinging the knife at the officer, who retreated out the lobby,” Bastedenbeck said at an early morning press conference. “He then moved toward the elevator and the officers inside the elevator.”

Stepping out of the elevator, the three officers first tried to subdue the suspect with an electric stun gun, but ended up shooting him as he continued to approach, Bastedenbeck said.

“Sometimes when you deploy a taser and you’re too close it doesn’t work,” a police source with knowledge of the case said. “So they had to discharge their weapons.”

The entire incident was caught on the officers’ body-worn cameras, Bastedenbeck said.

“It was within a few minutes, the whole incident,” the chief said.

A large, blood-stained kitchen knife was recovered at the scene.

Cops performed CPR on the man until EMS arrived and brought him to Weill-Cornell Medical Center, where he died about an hour after the clash began.

“It was determined that the perpetrator suffered from mental illness and was under the influence at the time of the incident,” the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation said in an email to area residents. “The perpetrator charged at officers with a large brandished knife, NYPD officers discharged their tasers and firearms striking the perpetrator in an attempt to neutralize the threat and ensure the safety of all involved.”

Brad Porter saw the cops performing first aid as an ambulance was called.

“They brought him out and they were doing chest compressions,” Porter, 60, said. “His chest was wrapped in bandages. They worked so hard on him. He was just lying there. He was not responding.”

The suspect had a criminal history, mostly for committing domestic assaults, a police source said. Cops had been called to the apartment before to quell domestic arguments between family members.

On Friday night, the family called 911 after the suspect began threatening family members with a knife.

“The caller was a relative inside the location who also stated the armed male was off his medication and under the influence of marijuana,” she said.

It was not immediately disclosed how many shots were fired. The NYPD’s Force Investigations Division will head up the probe into the incident, Bastedenbeck said.

Building resident Kevin Kelly heard between six and seven shots, all in a row.

“I was sleeping. I thought it was firecrackers,” Kelly, 60, told The News. “Then about five minutes later an ambulance coming. I didn’t hear screaming or anything so I didn’t realize it was shots.”

The Roosevelt Island Safety office was in the lobby of the Main St. apartment building and security team members assisted police, cops said.

None of the cops involved in the incident were injured, but were taken to an area hospital to be evaluated for tinnitus, cops said.

Roosevelt Island lies between Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Queens. It has several large apartment buildings that are home to about 11,000 people, according to the 2020 Census.

Cops from the 114th Precinct in Astoria patrol the island.

Porter was left rattled by the late-night shooting but said it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

“It’s surprising, but not surprising,” he said. “This building is sketchier than all the other buildings on Roosevelt Island.”

Friday’s clash marked the first police-involved shooting in the city in three months.

Police officers shot five city residents, killing one of them, during a string of separate police-involved shootings over an eight-day stretch in April, cops said.