Late Saturday night, New York’s pedestrian-heavy Times Square turned into an open firing range after police officers shot wildly into crowds while in pursuit of an “agitated man.”
The two New York Police Department officers ended up injuring two Manhattan women. One was shot right in front of Kerri Ann Nesbeth, a recent Florida Atlantic University grad who had just gotten her hair and nails done in Harlem.
Nesbeth livetweeted everything.
Omg just witnessed NYPD gun down a pedestrian in Times Square @CNN pic.twitter.com/AMCmFGrSZ4
— Kerri Ann Nesbeth (@knesbeth) September 15, 2013
This cannot be happening in front of me @CNN pic.twitter.com/aREMVNp8F4
— Kerri Ann Nesbeth (@knesbeth) September 15, 2013
Pure chaos pic.twitter.com/wsGRw673Gp
— Kerri Ann Nesbeth (@knesbeth) September 15, 2013
Man hit by taxi gets shot at 4 times by NYPD, they hit a pedestrian instead :( pic.twitter.com/XOINkahT31
— Kerri Ann Nesbeth (@knesbeth) September 15, 2013
Police were in pursuit of a 35-year-old man who had “been darting in front of cars on 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue,” the New York Times reported.
“He was just wandering, running away from the cop,” a witness said. “He tried to run and ended up getting hit by three different cars.”
One of the bystanders was a 54-year-old woman who ended injuring her knee, said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. The other pedestrian was a 35-year-old woman, who “suffered a graze wound to the buttock.” It is unclear which woman was captured in Nesbeth’s photo.
Meanwhile, video of the incident began to surface on Reddit and other social media:
Photos by Kerri Ann Nesbeth/Twitter