"An NYPD officer who killed a mentally ill woman in her Bronx apartment on Tuesday was sued twice for excessive force before Tuesday’s fatal encounter.
Around 6 p.m. Tuesday night, Sgt. Hugh Barry and an unnamed officer responded to reports of Deborah Danner acting "in an irrational manner" in a the hallway of her apartment building. An NYPD spokesperson told The Daily Beast neighbors had made “multiple 911 calls” about her behaviour on previous date.
This latest call involved a pair of scissors, which Danner was allegedly wielding while acting erratically in the hall. When police arrived, Danner had returned to her apartment, still clutching the scissors. An officer persuaded her to put them down. Then, according to police, the scene grew chaotic. Danner allegedly picked up a baseball bat and approached Barry. Instead of using his taser, as police protocol suggests, Barry shot Danner in the chest twice, killing her.
"What is clear in this one instance, we failed. I want to know why it happened," Police Commissioner James O'Neill said during a Wednesday press conference. "That's not how it's supposed to go. It's not how we train, our first obligation is to preserve life, not to take a life when it can be avoided. We need to know why.”
The NYPD’s top brass is now investigating why Barry resorted to lethal force, but his service history suggests trigger-happy tendencies.
In 2012, Barry was allegedly part of a violent arrest on 25-year-old Gregory Peters. According to a 2012 lawsuit, Peters was lawfully outside a midtown Manhattan building when officers pepper sprayed him, and forced him to the ground, where they punched and kicked him.
Barry was the only officer named in the case, which also accuses him of booking Peters on false charges “to cover up the above mentioned acts of brutality and abuse of authority.”
City attorneys settled the 2012 case for an undisclosed sum without admitting fault."
NYPD Cop Who Killed Mentally Ill Woman Was Sued Twice for Excessive Force - The Daily Beast
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