A man who was shot dead after he pulled out a gun at two NYPD police officers Saturday night during a drug bust was a "career criminal," NYPD officials say.
According to the New York Daily News, police sources say the violent scene took place around 10:45 p.m. late Saturday night in the Ridgewood section of Queens, N.Y., where two undercover police detectives from the Brooklyn Narcotics Unit were conducting a "buy and bust" operation on an alleged drug dealer at the intersection of Gates and Seneca Aves.
The alleged drug dealer, Nolan Rivera, 33, swallowed a bag of crack cocaine when he spotted the two detectives approaching, but police then began to arrest Rivera.
From there, the scene got ugly when Victor Santos, as identified by CBS News, an acquaintance of Rivera's, emerged from a livery cab and asked Rivera what was going on, while the detectives - whose badges were visible, witnesses told the Daily News - were handcuffing him.
"They're cops, you idiot," Mr. Rivera called out, according to what NYPD head spokesman Paul J. Browne told the New York Times.
Santos pulled a pistol from his waistband which police say looked like a Glock 19 semi-automatic handgun, but was actually a Walther CP99 compressed air pistol, otherwise known as a pellet gun.
Upon seeing the gun, police opened fire, the 48 year-old detective shooting the suspect with his service-issued pistol five times while the 42-year-old detective fired once using his own Glock 19. Three bullets struck the man in the leg and torso, and he was later pronounced dead at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.
A statement issued Sunday from the NYPD 104th Police Precinct, which covers Ridgewood, said that Santos, 46 (though his name was not released in the statement, pending notification of his family) was a "career criminal." The incident is still an active investigation.
Santos was arrested 39 times for assault, weapons possession, armed robbery and drug-related charges, New York Magazine reports. Described as being in and out of prison throughout the past 25 years, Santos was arrested and charged dozens more times in New York and Miami, the most recent charge being for criminal trespass in public housing in Brooklyn just this past June.
Police told the Daily news that Rivera later said that Santos appeared to have thought that Rivera was being robbed, and was going to try to capitalize by robbing the men himself.
"It appears to be a crime of opportunity for the man with the imitation gun...but it's still under investigation," a police source said.
The latest shooting marks what appears to be a large spike in shootings involving the NYPD this year. At least 12 police officers have been shot in New York, up from nine shot in New York City last year, reported the Daily News.
In addition, the number of shootings where assailants returned fire on police doubled from nine in 2011 to 18 this year.
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