Police fatally shot a 66-year-old black woman wielding a baseball bat – Business Insider

NYPD Assistant Chief Larry Nikunen briefs reporters on
the fatal shooting of 66-year-old Deborah
Danner.
NBC New
York

A New York City police officer fatally shot a 66-year-old black
woman who was wielding a baseball bat, police officials said
Tuesday.

The officer, who was white, was also armed with a Taser but
did not deploy it, police said.

The shooting occurred at the woman’s apartment in the Bronx on
Tuesday evening after police responded to a call about a woman
acting irrationally.

Police found the woman unclothed and armed with a pair of
scissors, New York Police Department assistant chief Larry
Nikunen told reporters. A police sergeant persuaded her to put
the scissors down, but the woman then tried to attack him with a
baseball bat Nikunen said.

The officer fired two shots into the woman’s torso, he said. She
was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center.

The woman, identified as Deborah Danner, had a history of erratic
behavior, residents of her apartment building told CBS
New York. Police had responded to “several incidents” with
the woman in the past, Nikunen said.

NBC New
York

The officer, Hugh Barry, is an eight-year veteran of the
department. He has been placed on “modified assignment,” meaning
he is stripped of his badge and gun pending an investigation,
CNN
reported.

The investigation, conducted by the department’s force
investigation division, will seek to determine why Nikunen opted
for his service revolver over his Taser, Nikunen said.

Deborah
Danner.
Facebook/Deborah
Danner

In a statement, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. called the
shooting “an outrage,” and accused the police department of
“excessive force” against Danner.

“While I certainly understand the hard work that our police
officers undertake to keep the streets of our city safe every
single day, I also know what excessive force looks like,” Diaz
said. “This elderly woman was known to the police department, yet
the officer involved in this shooting failed to use discretion to
either talk her down from her episode or, barring that, to use
his stun gun.”

“That is totally unacceptable,” he added.

NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill pledged that the department and
prosecutors would “figure out what went wrong.”

“We failed,” O’Neill said on Wednesday, according to
CBS New York. “We do have policies and procedures for
handling emotionally disturbed people. It looks like that some of
those procedures were not followed.”

Local racial justice activists are planning a
demonstration at Danner’s building Wednesday evening. 

“America has to say enough is enough,” said Black Lives Matter
New York president Hawk Newsome, according to
the New York Daily News. “These police officers need to start
using their brains and stop using their guns.”