The police-involved shooting happened at around 6:20 a.m. on April 14 near the corner of 31st Street and 30th Avenue in Astoria. Photo by Dean Moses
April 15, 2025 By Dean Moses
Attorney General Letitia James has launched an investigation into the fatal police shooting of a 61-year-old man experiencing a mental health crisis while armed with a knife on a public sidewalk in Astoria, her office announced Tuesday.
Police brass said that they attempted to de-escalate the shooting that happened at around 6:20 a.m. along 31st Street and 30th Avenue but “were forced to defend ourselves.” Responding officers from the 114th Precinct opened fire on the man as he approached them with a 14-inch knife in hand following a 56-second standoff, killing him.
Police sealed off the area of the shooting as part of the ongoing investigation and, although they did not say exactly how shots were fired, evidence markers numbering into the 30’s could be observed at the scene.Photo by Dean Moses
In the hours following the incident, district representatives, including Council Member Tiffany Cabán, State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, and Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas, issued a statement, “This is not public safety.”
“Our neighbor with a reported history of mental illness was shot to death by the police because the NYPD used lethal force after being unable to de-escalate a 56-second interaction with a 61-year old man holding a knife,” part of their joint statement read. “As we await more details, here are things we know: there are glaring gaps in our city’s mental health infrastructure. There are glaring gaps in our city’s emergency response infrastructure, particularly as it relates to New Yorkers with mental illness.”
Now, James’s Office of Special Investigation is probing the incident, her office announced over 24 hours later.
“The New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation (OSI) has opened an investigation into the death of a civilian who died on April 14, 2025, following an encounter with members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in Queens,” the Attorney General‘s office said.
NYPD Chief of Department John Chell.Photo by Dean Moses
Inquiries like these are common practice following shootings such as these and do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, NYPD Chief of Department John Chell stated on the day of the shooting that officers attempted to resolve things non-lethally by commanding him to drop the knife before using tasers that ultimately failed to subdue him.
“They gave orders to drop the knife. They deployed their Tasers, multiple Tasers, that were ineffective at this point,” Chell said.
Video captured on Citizen App showed a group of cops surrounding the suspect, performing CPR before he was whisked by EMS to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
