Daily US Times: New York Police has said a man was fatally shot in the head by police on the steps of a landmark New York City cathedral on Sunday afternoon after he began firing two semiautomatic handguns at the end of a Christmas choral concert.
New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said a sergeant, a detective and an officer fired 15 rounds after the man started shooting just before 4 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.
Shea said: “It is by the grace of God today that no one besides the gunman was struck.”
Witnesses told police the man was yelling “kill me” as he fired, according to Shea.
The man had a lengthy criminal history and was carrying a backpack containing a can of tape, knives, gasoline, rope, wire and a well-worn Bible, the police commissioner said. He called the actions of the officers “heroic.”
The concert was 45 minutes long and it had just concluded and participants were starting to walk away when a series of shots were heard, sending people running down Amsterdam Avenue screaming and diving to the sidewalk.
The gunman’s face was obscured by a white baseball cap and a face mask and he was dressed in black. He held a black pistol in one hand and a silver one in the other as he stepped from behind a stone column at the top of the staircase.
Before the gunfire began, the concert featured members of the cathedral choir standing far apart on the stone steps wearing masks because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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