Sunday, 6 Oct 2024

What We Know About the N.Y.P.D. Officer Killed in the Bronx

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It’s Tuesday.

Weather: Mostly cloudy, with a gentle breeze and a high near 80.

Alternate-side parking: Suspended today for Rosh Hashana.

The plainclothes officer was part of a team patrolling the sprawling Edenwald Houses in the Bronx to make gun arrests and to address chronic gang violence there.

But things turned deadly early Sunday after his struggle with an armed man erupted in gunfire that left both men dead, Police Department officials said.

Here’s what we know about the shooting

While attempting to subdue the man, around 12:30 a.m. Sunday, the officer, Brian Mulkeen, 33, was shot twice in a tragic case of “friendly fire” by fellow officers, the police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, said yesterday.

Officer Mulkeen had approached the armed man, Antonio Lavance Williams, 27, to question him about several recent shootings. But Mr. Williams fled.

Officer Mulkeen and his partners chased him, and Officer Mulkeen wrestled him to the ground.

They engaged in a 10-second “violent struggle,” Commissioner O’Neill said. A burst of gunfire followed, as multiple officers discharged their weapons. When it was over, Mr. Williams and Officer Mulkeen were mortally wounded.

Second ‘friendly fire’ shooting

It was the second time this year that an officer in the department was killed by bullets fired by fellow officers.

In February, Detective Brian Simonsen, 42, was shot and killed in Queens by fellow officers as they confronted a robbery suspect who had been holding a fake gun.

In the incident on Sunday, Mr. Williams, of Binghamton, N.Y. — who was on probation for a drug arrest from 2018 — was carrying a loaded .32-caliber gun, but it had not been fired, the police said. Officer Mulkeen’s pistol fired five bullets.

‘A mental health crisis in the N.Y.P.D.’

Officer Mulkeen’s death is the latest tragedy to plague the department this year.

Since January, nine active New York police officers have died by suicide.

“We’re in the middle of a mental health crisis in the N.Y.P.D.,” the commissioner said at a news conference yesterday, adding that the department would offer mental health services to the other officers involved.

From Wall Street to patrolling the Bronx

Officer Mulkeen, who lived with his girlfriend in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., left a potentially lucrative career in finance to join the police force. In his six years on the job, he had made about 270 arrests — more than half of them for felony charges.

Funeral details

The wake for Officer Mulkeen is scheduled for afternoon and evening sessions on Thursday at Smith, Seaman & Quackenbush Funeral Home in Monroe, N.Y., with a funeral Mass at 11 a.m. on Friday at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Monroe.

Want more news? Check out our full coverage.

The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.

What we’re reading

Illegal toad venom is a “hot mind-altering drug du jour” among well-off New Yorkers. [New York Post]

The Lower East Side is now a million-dollar neighborhood, according to a StreetEasy report. [Curbed]

A fan is suing the Mets. He says that a T-shirt cannon flung a shirt into his face, causing a concussion and eye trauma. [NY1]

Coming up today

The NPR correspondent Aarti Namdev Shahani discusses her new memoir, “Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares,” at Powerhouse @ the Archway in Brooklyn. 7 p.m. [Free with R.S.V.P.]

The Grammy Award winner Vince Giordano plays pre-swing, big band jazz with his Nighthawks Orchestra at the Iguana Restaurant & Dance Lounge in Manhattan. 8 p.m. [$20]

Watch live improv during “Harold Night” at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. 7:30 p.m. [$7]

— Emmett Lindner

Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times’s culture pages.

And finally: The perfect production for fall baseball fever

October in New York is always a bit better when a hometown baseball team is in the playoffs, and the Yankees will kick off postseason play on Friday in the Bronx against the Minnesota Twins.

The most monumental moment in New York City baseball playoff history may be when Bobby Thomson, the New York Giants third baseman, hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers for the National League pennant in 1951.

The homer, known as “The Shot Heard Round the World,” took place on Oct. 3, 1951, at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan. The shot sailed over the head of the Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder Andy Pafko and inspired the Don DeLillo novella “Pafko at the Wall.”

To mark the 68th anniversary of the homer, the 92nd Street Y is presenting a dramatic reading of the novella on Thursday night by the actors Billy Crudup, Zachary Levi and Tony Shalhoub. Tickets start at $45.

“The spontaneity created between such talented actors and the audience, the sense of anticipation and expectation, is not entirely unlike the experience of being at a live sporting event,” said Bernard Schwartz, who is directing the production.

The story by Mr. DeLillo, who will attend the performance, was initially published in Harper’s Magazine in 1992 and then adapted as the prologue to Mr. DeLillo’s 1997 novel “Underworld.”

It’s Tuesday — get your head in the game.

Metropolitan Diary: Walking the dog

Dear Diary:

I was in the West Village on a beautiful spring day, walking my 13-pound rescue mutt Charly and enjoying the first days of warm sun.

Coming down the block was a tall, muscular young man dressed in black leather. With him was an equally muscular big dog of unknown breed, also decked out in black leather, including a large leather collar with spikes, and on a chain link leash.

Because Charly is overly friendly with other dogs, I thought I should probably cross the street. Why risk a confrontation?

Then, just as we were about to cross the street, the man and his dog ducked into a garage.

“Phew,” I thought, as Charly and I continued down the block.

Passing the garage, I looked in and saw the young man. The dog was cowering behind him.

The young man looked at me sheepishly.

“He’s afraid of other dogs,” he said.

— Susan Pomerantz

New York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.

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Corey Kilgannon is a Metro reporter covering news and human interest stories. He was also part of the team that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. @coreykilgannon Facebook

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