Police Shoot Hammer-Wielding Man Sought in 4 Manhattan Attacks

**kellyhound** · #1 ● 05-14-2015, 07:42 AM

For two days, beat officers across New York City were on the lookout for a man believed to be the person who had swung a hammer, apparently at random, at the heads of park-goers and others around Manhattan.

Every officer at every roll call had seen a photo of the wanted man, a 30-year-old drifter with a history of arrests and severe mental illness. They hoped to catch him before another attack.

On Wednesday, two officers spotted the man in Midtown. He could be the hammer attacker, but they wanted to speak with him to be sure. The man, identified by the police as David Baril, saw them, too.

He stopped at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 37th Street, and as the officers closed in, he pulled a hammer, red with the dried blood of previous attacks, police officials said. He began swinging wildly at one of the officers, Lauren O’Rourke, 27, striking her as she backpedaled.

As they spilled into the intersection, her partner, Officer Geraldo Casaigne, drew his gun and fired four times, hitting Mr. Baril in the right arm, the torso and the “head area,”.

He was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he was in critical condition on Wednesday evening.

“Fortunately, thank God, both officers are fine and this individual is not going to be roaming the streets of New York attacking innocents any longer,” Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said.

At a time of intense national scrutiny of police shootings, the gunfire in a crowded, gritty stretch of Midtown just after the morning rush on Wednesday provided a stark illustration of the dangers that officers can face and the split-second decisions they must make.

Pyramid_Head · #2 ● 05-14-2015, 03:03 PM