The police fatally shot a 38-year-old Brooklyn man Friday evening when officers searching for him in connection with a bench warrant found him hiding in the bathtub of an apartment in the Flatbush neighborhood, officials said.
The police said they had to use deadly force on the man, identified as Vilmond Jean Baptiste, after he tried to stab an officer who had used a Taser that was not effective.
No body-camera footage or witness accounts were immediately available to support the police officers’ description of the shooting. A police spokesman said he did not have details about the bench warrant other than that it had been issued in Kings County in 2022.
At a news conference Friday night, Joseph Kenny, chief of detectives, said Mr. Jean Baptiste was also a “strong person of interest” in three homicides this summer. It is not clear whether the officers searching for him in connection with the warrant were aware of that before the shooting.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTIt all unfolded on the same day Thomas Donlon was sworn in as the Police Department’s new commissioner. On Thursdaygold99, Edward Caban resigned as commissioner at the request of City Hall after his phone was seized in connection with a federal investigation. His resignation was effective at the end of the day Friday.
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