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Police Fatally Shoot Mentally Ill Man Armed With Knife in Brooklyn: NYPD

By  Noah  Hurowitz and Trevor Kapp | July 31, 2017 1:23pm | Updated on August 1, 2017 7:34am

 Police fatally shot Dwayne Jeune, who they said charged officers with a knife inside his East Flatbush apartment Monday afternoon.
Police fatally shot Dwayne Jeune, who they said charged officers with a knife inside his East Flatbush apartment Monday afternoon.
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DNAinfo/Noah Hurowitz/Facebook

EAST FLATBUSH — Police fatally shot a mentally ill man in his apartment after he charged at them with a knife Monday afternoon, the NYPD said. 

Dwayne Jeune, 32, died after officers tried to take him down with a Taser inside 1370 New York Ave., near Foster Avenue, at 12:25 p.m.

The man's mother initially called 911 but told emergency operators over the phone that her son was not violent, police said. When four officers from the 67th Precinct arrived to the fifth-floor apartment, Jeune came at them with a knife, police said.

Credit: NYPD

"The officers knocked on the door and were let in by a woman," NYPD Chief of Patrol Terence Monahan said at the scene. "When the officers entered the apartment, they were charged at by a man with a large carving knife."

Police then tried to use a Taser on Jeune, to no avail, Monahan said.

"Both Tasers hit the body — one in the chest, one in the arm," he said. "When it was deployed, the suspect was able to fight through it and keep on moving forward."

That's when one of the officers opened fire, fatally striking Jeune, Monahan said.  

"I was inside my apartment, and I heard the four gunshots," recounted building resident Regina Blain, 22. "I knew it wasn't firecrackers."

Jeune died at the scene. 

Local Councilman Jumaane Williams offered his condolences to the man's family at a meeting with them at the New Horizon Gospel Ministry on Church Avenue on Monday evening.

"The family is how you'd expect them to be right now. They just lost their son," he said.

Williams said in an earlier statement that he had questions about the methods used by police.

"While news is developing around the incident, I am nonetheless concerned with the loss of life that occurred," he said. "In particular, whether protocols were followed for dealing with a call for an emotionally disturbed person.