Long Island police were called to a Bellmore intersection where a woman was waving a gun and fired shots into the air. An officer de-escalated the situation by driving into the woman before apprehending her.
?#BREAKING: Dramatic Incident Unfolds as Woman Fires Multiple Shots into the Air while Waving a Gun at People in Middle of Intersection⁰⁰?#Bellmore | #NewYork⁰⁰Moments ago Law enforcement and authorities responded to a situation where a 33-year-old African American woman… pic.twitter.com/wAdQTRBgND
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) August 15, 2023
The scene was captured on video and posted to X, formerly Twitter, and displayed the events as they unfolded.
According to the New York Post, police responded around 2:20 p.m. Tuesday. Before being sideswiped by the police car, she put the gun to her head.
She was then struck by the car, and another officer moved in shouting, “Drop the gun!”
The 33-year-old suspect was taken to the hospital with minor injuries and is now in police custody.
Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder supported the officers’ actions, per Long Island News 12. He said, “Protocol on the police department is that deadly physical force spurs deadly physical force.”
“If somebody has threatened deadly physical force against you or another, you have the right to use deadly physical force, and they chose it through their vehicle and they stopped the individual,” he added.
Crime in Long Island has been on the rise. Newsday reported that Nassau County experienced a 41% increase in major crimes between 2021 and 2022.
According to the NYPD website, arrests for the most serious crimes in New York City have increased.
It stated, “Overall arrests for March 2023 were up 12.3% from March 2022 (19,027 v. 16,939), and up 23.5% for the first three months of this year (54,576 v. 44,199) – representing a four-year high.”
According to the State Comptroller 2022 Public Safety report, 20 New York police departments have received increased funding to combat gun violence on the basis that, “incidents of gun-related violence involving injury rose by 75 percent in 2020 and continued to climb in 2021 in the areas reporting on this data.”
In addition, it also noted, “When comparing the five-year averages (2016-2020) to the number of reported incidents in 2021, shooting incidents resulting in injury or death reported by these 20 police departments are up 45 percent.”
