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A man was shot by police outside a grocery store after brandishing a 13-inch kitchen knife, the New York Police Department has reported.
“This incident serves as a stark reminder of the risks our officers face each day when they don their uniforms. Today was no exception,” stated Inspector Andrew Natiw, the executive officer of the Patrol Bureau of Manhattan North, during a press briefing on Monday morning.
The NYPD detailed that around 1:15 a.m. on Monday, a 53-year-old man engaged in a verbal altercation with another individual inside the City Fresh Market located at East 120th Street and Third Avenue.
After becoming “irate and disorderly,” store employees had to forcibly remove him, according to police statements. The man soon returned to the establishment, this time wielding a large kitchen knife and banging on the windows, police said.
Officers from the 25th Precinct arrived on the scene around 1:44 a.m. in response to a police-involved shooting. Surveillance footage from a nearby supermarket captured the suspect threatening employees with the knife before he encountered law enforcement.
WATCH: Knife-wielding man seen menacing grocery store employees
Surveillance video captured the man wielding a 13-inch knife, yelling, pressing against the store’s glass, police said.
Employees locked the door and called 911 just after 1:30 a.m.Â
When officers arrived, they told the man to drop the knife multiple times, but he “quickly advanced toward the officers with the knife extended out.”
Police shot a 53-year-old man armed with a 13-inch knife in East Harlem early Monday. (NYPD NEWS)
Authorities said that one of the officers shot the suspect and immediately requested EMS and rendered aid to the 53-year-old suspect.
The suspect, they said, was removed to Harlem Hospital where he went into surgery, and is in critical, but stable condition.
Police recovered a 13-inch kitchen knife outside an East Harlem grocery store after they say a man charged officers with it. (WNYW)
The NYPD declined to provide a name of the suspect. Police said the man has a history of prior arrests and was known to law enforcement.
Investigators recovered approximately seven shell casings at the scene. The incident remains under investigation.
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