New videos show frightening encounters before Upper East Side shootout last month
The NYPD on Friday released never-before-seen videos and 911 calls from a November shootout on the Upper East Side.
Elijah Brown, 20, was shot and killed by police officers on Madison Avenue near 96th Street on Nov. 13.
About 20 minutes before the shooting, new surveillance video shows the suspect pull a gun on a man in the elevator of an apartment building about 10 blocks north. He gets out of the elevator on the first floor. The other man was unharmed, police said.
Brown then went to a corner bodega on East 107th Street, where he can be seen on video going behind the counter and pulling a gun. Police said Brown demanded the clerk call 911.
Video shows Brown taking the clerk's phone, and he can be heard talked to the 911 operator in a recording released by police.
"I'm crazy. I have a gun," Brown said. "Someone was trying to kill me and I got away because I'm crazy."
Police said Brown told the operator he was going to Mount Sinai Hospital, and a few minutes later, he is seen on surveillance video walking into the emergency room and talking to an off-duty officer who was working security.
As the guard escorts him out, Brown grabs him from behind, then runs outside and grabs the gun he had stashed outside in a flowerbed on the sidewalk.
The guard, who started to follow him outside, runs back into the hospital after seeing the gun and calls for backup.
A few minutes later, video shows police officers encountering Brown on Madison Avenue.
Police said Brown turned toward the officers with his gun raised and fired at least one shot. The officers fired more than 20 rounds, striking and killing Brown.
The NYPD says its Force Investigation Division is still investigating the incident.
