The department says one officer discharged his taser and another fired his weapon, hitting the man holding the knife.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — One man is dead following an officer-involved shooting in Buffalo late Thursday night.
According to a Buffalo Police spokesperson, they received a call for a man experiencing a mental health crisis on Minnesota Avenue. Officers responded just before 11 p.m. Thursday. They say the situation escalated.
The department says one officer discharged his taser and another fired his weapon, hitting the man holding the knife.
The man was taken to ECMC, where he was pronounced dead. No further details were available early Friday.
Buffalo Police held a news conference on Friday morning to release more information on this case.
Here is a transcript of scanner call picked up by Broadcastify on Thursday night: “An update from AMR reports the patient at 54 Minnesota has been shot by Buffalo Police. AMR supposedly on scene.”
That radio call set the scene on Minnesota Avenue as AMR paramedics responded at 10:26 p.m. Thursday to what was called a mental health issue for a 58-year-old man in one of the units in a house.
Interim Buffalo Police Commissioner Craig Macy said the situation dramatically and dangerously changed within minutes for those paramedics. He described the timeline in this way: “AMR is on scene they update the call through their dispatch ultimately to Buffalo Police Dispatch that a 50 year old man is is threatening to kill the AMR crew as well as the neighbor.”
Macy continued: “AMR then reports that the male now has three people at knifepoint which triggers an immediate dispatch of police cars.”
Then about a half hour after the original AMR on-scene response, the commissioner said police officers arrive on scene to find that 58-year-old man is holding two knives.
Macy said “there is a deployment of a taser which, multiple times, the taser was deployed. Verbal commands were issued, and then one officer fires his service weapon two times, ultimately striking the subject in the torso.”
The wounded individual later dies in surgery at Erie County Medical Center. Police said there were no other injuries.
On the Buffalo Police Department website, it lists the Behavioral Health Team with a response to mental health calls involving trained officers and clinicians from Endeavour Health.
But they operate 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. That is not on weekends or late at night, like this incident.
Macy said paramedics may also have some same mental health response training.
However, in response to questions from 2 On Your Side, Macy said the police department is aware of the need to upgrade their unit.
“We have been in contact with the Erie County Office of Mental Health and Central Police Services. We are discussing expanding and pivoting a little bit more. For the last three or four weeks we’ve been in discussion, and we’re looking to actually put something else in place very soon,” he said.
Three Buffalo police officers are on administrative leave, which is standard procedure with a state Attorney General’s Office investigation of any police-involved shooting.
Interim Commissioner Macy said there were 17 previous ambulance calls to that address but no criminal involvement with the individual, who apparently was relatively new to the area.
No police body cam video will be released until the out-of-town family of the man is contacted and has seen it.
A spokesperson for AMR also known as Global Medical Response said they could not comment about their paramedics due to HIPAA laws but we are told there were no other physical injuries.
We also wanted to ask them specifically about their policies on a response to a mental health call and their training of paramedics to deal with such situations without an immediate police presence.
The AMR statement said they could not confirm or deny any involvement with this situation even though the BPD Interim Commissioner said their staff paramedics were directly involved and held at knifepoint as hostages with threats by that subject who is now deceased.