JAMAICA HILLS — A man was shot and killed during a gun battle with police after he opened fire in a bar where he'd been drinking for about six hours and then took off running through Jamaica Hills Wednesday night, NYPD officials said.
Jonathan Efraim, 30, was in Irish Hillside Inn, 168-02 Hillside Ave., near 168th Street, where he'd been downing Heinekens from about 3 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. when he got into a dispute with another patron, sources said.
Efraim, who lived about two blocks away on 169th Street, tried to scare off the other person by pulling out his 9mm Glock handgun and then shot it into the ceiling, sources said.
Efraim then stepped out of the bar as it erupted in pandemonium with people running and calling 911, sources said.
When he saw police coming, Efraim ran north on 168th Street toward Highland Avenue, police said. The police chased after.
Officers caught up to him at 168th and Highland, shouting, "Police, don't move!" officials said.
But Efraim kept running about a block east to Highland and 168th Place, where he turned and fired on the pursuing officers, missing them, police said.
He bolted south on 168th Place and again turned to fire at the police on his heels, but as he did so, two of them shot five times and him in the torso across the street from 87-43 168th Place, police said.
"I heard three shots — pop, pop, pop — one after another," said Bahalul Syed, 50, who was working at a nearby grocery at the time.
"The guy was on the floor. ... There was blood on the ground. The guy from the ambulance was pumping him, doing chest compressions. They were trying to wake him up," Syed added.
Efraim was pronounced dead at Jamaica Hospital, NYPD officials said.
His family was still trying to grapple with his death Thursday morning, they said.
"We're going to focus on the grieving process now," said a man who identified himself as Efraim's brother but wouldn't give his name.
Efraim had been arrested 16 times, most recently in 2012 for criminal mischief, an NYPD spokesman said. Three of those arrests are sealed and another seven were in New Jersey, the spokesman said.
The officers who shot the suspect were treated for tinnitus at North Shore LIJ, police said.
Law enforcement sources said officers who shot the man did not appear to have broken department policy. The NYPD's internal affairs bureau and the precinct's detective's squad were still investigating it.
Staff at the bar did not immediately return requests for comment.
