[Avenue A and East 6th Street this morning]
According to published reports, there are now two separate investigations into the shooting death of Felix David inside 538 E. Sixth St. near Avenue B, a nonprofit that provides housing for the mentally ill.
The NYPD is conducting an investigation into the incident that left David dead Saturday afternoon after an altercation with two detectives from the 26th Precinct. Per The New York Times today:
Police officials cited the brutality of the roughly five-minute melee that preceded the shooting on Saturday. Mr. David ripped a police radio from one of the detectives and used it to bash their heads, one official said.
“It’s like hitting somebody with a brick,” said Joseph L. Giacalone, a former detective sergeant who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Both detectives were bruised and cut in the face, the police said.
Here's how the Times described David:
An itinerant man with few recent family ties, Mr. David, 24, had a history of mental illness and frequent run-ins with the law, police officials said.
As a teenager, in 2007, he was helped by officers in Midtown Manhattan, who classified him as a runaway. The next year, Bronx officers encountered him in a state of emotional distress and took him to a hospital. He was on medication at the time, one official said.
There were arrests for assault and grand larceny across the city and in Kearny, N.J. From 2009 to 2012, he had spent months, on and off, as a prisoner at Rikers Island. More recently, he lived at two different treatment centers for young people with mental illness.
In total, the Daily News said David had eight prior arrests, six of which involved assault charges.
The detectives were there to arrest David after he reportedly beat and robbed an acquaintance inside City College on Thursday. Per The Wall Street Journal today:
The woman reported the incident to police, and the detectives attempted to arrest Mr. Felix just before 2 p.m. Saturday on East Sixth Street, officials said. The two detectives approached Mr. Felix in a sixth-floor apartment but he fled using the fire escape, officials said.
The Manhattan district attorney's office is also investigating the shooting ... "a routine procedure after fatal police encounters," per the Times.
The detectives have been released from the hospital, according to the Daily News.
Previously
