NYPD Officer Fatally Shoots Knife-Wielding Man In Springfield Gardens, Queens

An NYPD officer fatally shot a knife-wielding man in Queens Friday afternoon,

Police were responding to a call at 165-43 Terrace in Springfield Gardens. When they arrived they found an emotionally disturbed, 27-year-old man holding a knife to his own neck.

After pleading with him to put the knife down, the man raised the knife in the air and approached a police officer. The officer fired one shot, hitting the man in the shoulder.

The man's injuries were initially not considered life-threatening. At 7:16, however, he was pronounced dead at Jamaica Hospital.

Kevin, a neighbor and friend of the deceased, didn't understand why the cops had to shoot him.

“Why didn’t they tase him to bring him down, calm him down and then grab hold of him to keep him under wraps?” he told CBS New York. “That man did not deserve that.”

Less than 24 hours earlier, an NYPD officer fatally shot a Bronx bodega worker, 20-year-old Reynaldo Cuevas. According to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Cuevas was fleeing from the store after a robbery when he barreled into a cop, whose gun accidentally discharged.