Police fatally shot a robbery suspect in a 7-Eleven store in New York City. According to law enforcement officials, the incident was triggered by an alert from a store employee who noticed an armed man behaving aggressively. The employee managed to escape the store and alert the police at a nearby precinct.
Eyewitness Steve Schiro, who was at the scene, said, “I had just bought a slushy and left the store when I heard about the incident. I was told someone had been shot as I was walking up Tremont.” The suspect, a 22-year-old man, was armed with a kitchen knife. He had entered the store just after 2 p.m. on Saturday and refused to leave. A female employee, who had stepped out of the store earlier, returned to find the man behind the counter with another employee.
The suspect was in the process of robbing the store when the female employee managed to alert two officers from the 45th Precinct, located just a block away. The officers entered the store and instructed the man to remove his hands from his sweatshirt pocket.
Assistant Chief Benjamin Gurley explained the sequence of events. He shared that the suspect, armed with a kitchen knife, began approaching the officer and lunging at him. Despite the officer giving verbal commands, the situation escalated as the man began making advances toward the officer. Despite repeated commands from the officer to drop the knife, the suspect refused to comply. In response, a single shot was fired from the policeman’s gun. The bullet struck the suspect in the torso, and he was later pronounced dead at Jacobi Hospital as a result of his gunshot wound.
The incident has left a deep impact on the local community. A woman who works nearby expressed her distress, saying that she “wanted to throw up” when she heard the news of the suspect’s death in such close quarters to her workplace.