NEW YORK (AP) — Footage of two New York City police officers opening fire at a subway station as they confronted a man holding a knife shows they shot at him as he was standing still, his arms by his side and his back to a train.
In the days since Sunday’s shooting, police officials have repeatedly emphasized that the officers fired after Derell Mickles “charged" at one of them, and when their attempts to deescalate the situation and use Tasers had failed — leaving them with little choice but to resort to deadly force to protect themselves and passengers.
The footage, uploaded to the NYPD's YouTube page Friday, offers a different view of the shooting that not only wounded Mickles but also a bystander, who was hit in the head with a stray bullet. Gregory Delpeche, 49, was sent to the hospital in critical condition, where doctors had to open up his skull to reduce brain swelling, according to his family.
“The NYPD’s version of events is a gross mischaracterization of what we see on that video,” said Nick Liakas, an attorney representing Delpeche’s family. “There was no need for any bullets to fly in the subway station, especially in a setting where the officers put innocent bystanders at risk. And it resulted in Gregory getting shot in the back of the head.”
Police officials defended the officers in a news conference Wednesday.
“It happened because an individual decided to enter our subway system. He refused to drop that weapon, after repeated orders by the officers. And then he advanced towards the officers while he was armed," the NYPD interim commissioner, Thomas Donlon, said.
NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell described the shooting as a “tragic situation” and said “we did the best we could to protect our lives and the lives of people on that train.”
As Chell described it, Mickles jumped a turnstile at a subway station in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn a little after 3 p.m. Sunday. The two officers asked the 37-year-old Brooklyn native to leave, and he did, but Mickles was seen unfolding a knife on his way out.
When Mickles returned to the station a few minutes later, the officers followed him up the steps onto the elevated platform. In the body camera footage, they tell Mickles to drop the knife. Mickles, standing with his hands behind his back says, “I'm not dropping it, you'll have to shoot me.” The officers repeatedly implore him to show them his hands. He tells them to leave him alone.
When a train pulls into the station, Mickles backs onto it. The officers follow him on. They repeatedly say “put it down” and then fire their Tasers, which have little effect, embedding in Mickles' T-shirt before he rips them out and walks off the train.
Now on the platform, Mickles holds the knife with the blade open. The officers follow him out from different doors, and Mickles runs in the direction of one officer, who runs backwards.
When the officers pull their guns, Mickles comes to a complete stop, his hands by his sides, in front of the train. As Mickles turns his head slightly to the left, they fire multiple shots. Mickles falls into train while the passengers inside flee.
In Chell's telling on Wednesday, he said: “Mr. Mickles charged one of the officers and then turned around and the other officer was standing there within approximately 5 feet. It was at this time they both discharged their weapons.”
In addition to Mickles and Delpeche, one of the officers was wounded in the shooting. A 26-year-old woman suffered a graze wound.
Earlier Friday, Mickles, appearing remotely from his hospital bed, pleaded not guilty to charges including attempted aggravated assault on a police officer, menacing an officer, weapons possession and evading his subway fare. The judge set his bail at $200,000.
Mickles' lawyer, Jonathan Fink, said his client is in “very bad shape” and unable to walk.
“It seems there’s a strong argument there was disproportionate force used by the police in this case," said Fink, who had not yet seen the video.
Police reform advocates condemned the shooting.
“This horrific event that endangered dozens of transit users didn’t happen in a vacuum," Loyda Colon, of the group Communities United for Police Reform, said in a statement Friday. "It happened because the mayor has invested in flooding officers into our subway system and communities to criminalize mental illness and poverty, rather than in making transit, housing, and services affordable and available to New Yorkers."
Earlier in the week, Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and former police captain, said he’d seen the videos and that the officers should be commended for showing a "great level of restraint.”
“I saw the steps those police officers implemented,” Adams told reporters Tuesday. “Over and over again, trying to reason with the perpetrator. And so some people said, ‘Well, you shouldn’t be enforcing fare evasion.’ No. This is not a city where any and everything goes.”
After the footage was released, his office released a statement that was less effusive, noting that the NYPD’s initial review found that shooting took place after Mickles “brandished a dangerous weapon and put officers’ lives at risk.”
“While the formal review continues, and out of respect for that process, I will avoid commenting any further,” Adams said.
Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.
In this image from video provided by the New York Police Department, officers point their weapons towards Derell Mickles at the Sutter Avenue subway station in the Brownsville neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York, on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (NYPD via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The price of bitcoin surged to over $109,000 early Monday, just hours ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, as a pumped up cryptocurrency industry bets he'll take action soon after returning to the White House.
Once a skeptic who said a few years ago that bitcoin “ seems like a scam,” Trump has embraced digital currencies with a convert’s zeal. He's launched a new cryptocurrency venture and vowed on the campaign trail to take steps early in his presidency to make the U.S. into the “crypto capital” of the world.
His promises including creating a U.S. crypto stockpile, enacting industry-friendly regulation and event appointing a crypto “czar” for his administration.
“You’re going to be very happy with me,” Trump told crypto-enthusiasts at a bitcoin conference last summer.
Bitcoin is the world’s most popular cryptocurrency and was created in 2009 as a kind of electronic cash uncontrolled by banks or governments. It and newer forms of cryptocurrencies have moved from the financial fringes to the mainstream in wild fits and starts.
The highly volatile nature of cryptocurrencies as well as their use by criminals, scammers and rogue nations, has attracted plenty of critics, who say the digital currencies have limited utility and often are just Ponzi schemes.
But crypto has so far defied naysayers and survived multiple prolonged price drops in its short lifespan. Wealthy players in the crypto industry, which felt unfairly targeted by the Biden administration, spent heavily to help Trump win November’s election. Bitcoin has surged in price since Trump's victory, topping $100,000 for the first time last month before briefly sliding down to about $90,000. On Friday, it rose about 5%. It jumped more than $9,000 early Monday, according to CoinDesk.
Two years ago, bitcoin was trading at about $20,000.
Trump’s picks for key cabinet and regulatory positions are stocked with crypto supporters, including his choice to lead the Treasury and Commerce departments and the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Key industry players held a first ever "Crypto Ball” on Friday to celebrate the first “crypto president." The event was sold out, with tickets costing several thousand dollars.
Here’s a look at some detailed action Trump might take in the early days of his administration:
As a candidate Trump promised that he would create a special advisory council to provide guidance on creating “clear” and “straightforward” regulations on crypto within the first 100 days of his presidency.
Details about the council and its membership are still unclear, but after winning November’s election, Trump named tech executive and venture capitalist David Sacks to be the administration’s crypto “czar.” Trump also announced in late December that former North Carolina congressional candidate Bo Hines will be the executive director of the “Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets.”
At last year’s bitcoin conference, Trump told crypto supporters that new regulations “will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry.” Trump's pick to lead the SEC, Paul Atkins, has been a strong advocate for cryptocurrencies.
Crypto investors and companies chafed as what they said was a hostile Biden administration that went overboard in unfair enforcement actions and accounting policies that have stifled innovation in the industry — particularly at the hands of outgoing SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
“As far as general expectations from the Trump Administration, I think one of the best things to bet on is a tone change at the SEC,” said Peter Van Valkenburgh, the executive director of the advocacy group Coin Center.
Gensler, who is set to leave as Trump takes office, said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that he’s proud of his office’s actions to police the crypto industry, which he said is “rife with bad actors.”
Trump also promised that as president he’ll ensure the U.S. government stockpiles bitcoin, much like it already does with gold. At the bitcoin conference earlier this summer, Trump said it the U.S. government would keep, rather than auction off, the billions of dollars in bitcoin it has seized through law enforcement actions.
Crypto advocates have posted a draft executive order online that would establish a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” as a “permanent national asset” to be administered by the Treasury Department through its Exchange Stabilization Fund. The draft order calls for the Treasury Department to eventually hold at least $21 billion in bitcoin.
Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming has proposed legislation mandating the U.S. government stockpile bitcoin, which advocates said would help diversify government holdings and hedge against financial risks. Critics say bitcoin’s volatility make it a poor choice as a reserve asset.
Creating such a stockpile would also be a “giant step in the direction of bitcoin becoming normalized, becoming legitimatized in the eyes of people who don’t yet see it as legitimate,” said Zack Shapiro, an attorney who is head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute.
At the bitcoin conference earlier this year, Trump received loud cheers when he reiterated a promise to commute the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the convicted founder of the drug-selling website Silk Road that used crypto for payments.
Ulbricht’s case has energized some crypto advocates and Libertarian activists, who believe government investigators overreached in building their case against Silk Road.
FILE - Donald Trump speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference July 27, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)