Police Blunder: New York cops kill unarmed man after mistaking pipe for a gun

New Delhi: In a blunder committed by police, reported from New York, the cops shot dead an African American man in Brooklyn after mistaking a piece of pipe in his hand for a gun. Ironically, the shooting came on 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination and is being widely criticised. According to reports, the shooting took place at around 5 PM in Crown Heights which is a primarily a black neighborhood. The police had reportedly got information that a man was pointing an object that appears to be a gun at people on the street. The police responded and went to seize the alleged “gunman”. When the police approached the man took a shooting stance pointing the object with both his hands at the cops. Police shot ten bullets at the man to neutralize him. However after approaching the man, the police found that he was not holding a gun but it was a pipe with some sort of knob at the end of it. Media reports have it that the man was mentally deranged but was not violent. A similar incident took place recently in which the police shot a man fearing that he was carrying a weapon, when he was actually carrying an iPhone. These back to back incidents have sparked a debate on violence by law enforcement. A large number of people gathered at the site after the shooting. A person also went live on Facebook . Courtesy:Facebook (Moe Wilansky)