Bodycam: N.Y. Police Officers Clash with Suspect after He Holds Ambulance Crew at Knifepoint

By Aaron Besecker

Source The Buffalo News, N.Y.

A 58-year-old man died Thursday night (March 5) after he was shot by a Buffalo police officer who responded to call of a man in a mental health crisis who was holding three people at knifepoint, Buffalo police said.

The shooting happened at about 10:58 p.m. at 54 Minnesota Ave., between Main Street and Cordova Avenue, according to the Buffalo Police Department. The man, whose name was withheld, died during surgery at Erie County Medical Center, Interim Police Commissioner Craig Macy said Friday.

Three police officers, whose names were also withheld, have been placed on paid administrative leave following the incident. Those officers are the officer who fired his gun, the officer who deployed his Taser and a third officer. It was not immediately clear what the third officer's role was.

The third officer had "close involvement" in the incident, the Commissioner's Office said.

The incident began with a 911 call at 10:26 p.m. from a man who wasn't at the scene who reported a mental health crisis in the residence on Minnesota. A second call about the incident was received at 10:38 p.m., Macy said.

An ambulance crew arrived at the scene at 10:43 p.m. That crew reported to its dispatchers that a man at the scene was threatening to kill them, as well as a neighbor, Macy said.

The call was initially given a priority ranking that did not immediately deploy officers to the scene. Once police learned three people were being held at knifepoint, which happened at 10:52 p.m., officers were dispatched to the scene.

At 10:53 p.m., the first Buffalo police officer reported heading to the scene, and the first police vehicles arrived at 10:55.

At 10:57 p.m., officers at the scene asked the dispatcher and other officers to limit radio transmissions.

At 10:58 officers reported shots were fired.

"In this very, very brief timeline that we've had to look at and what we've been able to uncover, or what we know right now, there is a very significant level of threat that escalated against the officers in a very short period of time," Macy said. "In those few seconds that we're looking at, 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."

The man, who was shot in the torso, had two knives in his possession, he said.

The case is being investigated by the Buffalo Police Department's Homicide Unit and the State Attorney General's Office.

Macy said body camera footage may be released late next week. (Editor's note: Police released the footage Thursday.) The family of the man who was shot will be given a chance to review the footage first, he said.

The shooting happened in the vestibule of the house, which contained multiple residential units, police said.

Buffalo police at the scene initially reported that the man was shot once, but later said he was shot three times, according to an archive of police radio communications on broadcastify.com.

"The suspect was lunging at the officers with a knife and refusing to put the knife down," one of the officers at the scene reported to dispatch.

The man who was shot had been living in the Buffalo area for less than a year, Macy said. There have been 17 ambulance calls at that address in the last year and a half, though not all the calls were necessarily just for this man, Macy said.

Police believe the man's family does not live in Buffalo.

This is the first fatal shooting by a Buffalo police officer since July 2024, when an officer shot a driver on Kensington Avenue as the officer clung to an open door of the driver's speeding car, which had a 6-year-old boy in the passenger seat. The State Attorney General's Office said no criminal charges would be filed against the officer.

Recent police shootings in Buffalo include a Sept. 27 case on Donovan Drive when officers shot a woman who was armed with a knife who had stabbed a man in the head. The Erie County District Attorney's Office deemed the shooting of Cynthia Gilbert a justified use of force. In October, Gilbert was arraigned on attempted murder and assault charges.

On Aug. 13, Cheektowaga police fatally shot a man who lunged at them with a knife in an apartment building on Sanders Road in North Buffalo. The Cheektowaga officers were attempting to arrest Hugh Davis Jr. for a reported assault. The State Attorney General’s Office announced in December that the officers would not face criminal charges.

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