All 9 Empire State Building shooting injuries by police
A New York City police officer keeps watch near where a gunman and police officers clashed outside the Empire State Building Aug. 24, 2012. / Getty Images
(AP) NEW YORK - The veteran patrolmen who opened fire on a gunman outside the Empire State Building had only an instant to react when the man whirled around and pointed a .45-caliber pistol at police as they approached him from behind on a busy sidewalk.
Officer Craig Matthews shot seven times, and Officer Robert Sinishtaj fired nine times, police say. Neither had ever fired their weapons before on a patrol.
The volley of gunfire felled Jeffrey Johnson, 58, in just a few seconds and left nine other people bleeding on the sidewalk.
In the initial chaos Friday, it wasn't clear whether Johnson or the officers were responsible for the trail of wounded. But based on ballistic and other evidence, "it appears that all nine of the victims were struck either by fragments or by bullets fired by police," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters Saturday at a community event in Harlem.
Police officials have said the officers appeared to have no choice but to shoot Johnson, whose body had 10 bullet wounds in the chest, arms and legs.
Police determined that three people were struck by whole bullets - two of which were removed from victims at the hospital - and the rest were grazed "by fragments of some sort," Kelly said.
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Two women with leg wounds and a man with a wound to his buttocks required surgery and remained hospitalized Saturday. They were listed in stable condition.
Both Matthews, 39, and Sinishtaj, 40, joined the nation's largest police department 15 years ago. The union representing the two officers didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The officers confronted Johnson as he walked down the street after gunning down a former co-worker on the sidewalk outside the office they once shared. The shooting happened as the neighborhood bustled with people arriving for work.
The gunman and his victim, Steve Ercolino, had a history of workplace squabbles before Johnson was laid off from their company, Hazan Import Corp., a year ago. At one point, the two men had grappled physically in an elevator.
A security videotape from the scene Friday shows several civilians - including three sitting on a bench only a few feet away - scattering as the officers opened fire.
Below, watch a report for "CBS This Morning" from correspondent Elaine Quijano on the bad blood between Johnson and Ercolino prior to the shooting
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And seeing as there are no laws saying you have to be trained in order to have a gun, you can bet that the vast majority would be untrained.
No, they do not have to pass a "training" course. They have to pass a "safety" course. Big difference.
Media Outlets are looking for stories to hard sometimes.
First thing that comes to mind for me, is the idea that some people think its a Great Idea to let every college kid carry a weapon around a college campus, so they can shoot someone else who starts shooting!
Yeah - right! : /
And I'm not faulting them for innocent bystanders getting hurt.
I'm just saying, imagine if that were untrained high school civilians attempting to shoot the guy, how many innocent bystanders would have been hurt then? : /
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The timing by the cops was lousy, if not criminal.
Evidently, the guy had ALREADY done what he came to do.
The cops confronted him BEFORE he turned on them. They had ample time to have simply backed off and followed him to, hopefully, a less crowded environment.
Yes, it is possible that the guy MIGHT be a further danger to the crowd but, firing 16 shots at him, in a crowded street, is not protecting the people, it is intentionally, or at the very least, negligently, placing them in positive and immediate danger.
What if you and your family were standing in that crowd? Would you still want the cops to open fire?
To justify firing a hail of bullets in a crowded street is like saying that cops should just open fire in a hostage situation, rather than trying to save the hostages.
BTW. I have owned and fired guns all my life. My first gun was a single-shot 22-caliber rifle, which I traded a bicycle for when I was 13 years old. That was the age my Dad first allowed me to go hunting alone.
I now own four guns including, a 264-caliber bolt-action rifle, a 16-gauge Browning automatic shotgun, a 22-caliber automatic rifle, and a 22-caliber handgun.
I have fired guns all my life. I have successfully hunted deer, rabbits, squirrels, and other critters but I have NEVER had any LEAD bullets to fragment and hit other targets. Of course I guess humans could be different, I have never shot one of them yet.