"I want to die": Armed man shot dead by police on Brooklyn Bridge
A man climbed the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, engaging in a nearly hour-long standoff with emergency services. Officers were forced to tether themselves to the cables, limiting their mobility. During the incident, the man claimed to have a bomb before brandishing a knife at police.
An unusual confrontation on one of New York's most recognizable landmarks ended in a fatal shooting. A man armed with a knife who climbed the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge on Friday spent nearly an hour fending off police attempts to convince him to come down, telling them he wanted to die. The incident ended after, according to the police, he moved toward officers tethered to the cables and brandished a knife at one of them.
The incident began early in the morning, around 3:30 AM, when police received reports of a person climbing the bridge. Members of the NYPD Emergency Service Unit (ESU) were called to the scene and spotted the man walking on the bridge's cables. Officers climbed up to him and tried for nearly an hour to convince him to come down safely.
Due to the danger, the officers were forced to tether themselves to the cables, which significantly limited their ability to move quickly. The unit's commander, Jerry Dowling, said the man held a knife and told the officers:
"I want to die. I want you to kill me. I have a bomb. You won't make me do anything bad to the police."
According to Dowling, the officers repeatedly ordered him to drop the knife, but he did not comply.
At one point, the man began to descend quickly along the cable to which the officers were tethered. "The officers started to move backward, but they couldn't move at the speed he was approaching them," Dowling said.
According to the police, when he reached a distance of about a meter from one of the unit members, he raised his hand and brandished the knife at him. At that point, another officer, who was standing on the bridge's roadway level, fired one shot and hit him. Officers provided medical treatment to the man at the scene, and he was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A knife and a flashlight were found at the scene. The police identified the deceased as 41-year-old Sean Bottom, a resident of the Bronx. According to authorities, Bottom had no prior arrests and no police record of mental health issues.
