An Brooklyn teen – who witnesses said was armed only with a hairbrush – died last night in a hail of 20 bullets fired by cops who had been called to the building by the victim’s mother, who told them he had a gun, police sources said.
Just before he was shot, the teen shouted, “I got a gun!” said the NYPD sources. They quoted witnesses as also telling officers, “he’s got a gun.”
No gun was recovered.
Witnesses told The Post that the 17-year-old – whose name was withheld – was holding a hairbrush and had his hands up when he was shot around 8 p.m. at 590 Gates Ave. in the Medgar Evers housing project in Bedford Stuyvesant,
The teen had just jumped out of the window of his first floor apartment and was trying to flee when cops ordered him to stop. When he ignored them they opened fire, the sources said.
He died at Woodhull Hospital.
The shooters were two sergeants and a detective from the 79th Precinct and two housing cops.
Cops had gone to the building after the teen’s mother called 911, saying her son was armed.
Andre Sanchez, 17, who lives nearby, was heading to a store when he saw cops rush into the building and followed them into the hallway.
He said they knocked in the teen’s door and were shouting at him to come out of his bedroom.
“I saw the boy peeking in and out of the bedroom,” Sanchez told The Post.
“He must have done it about three or four times.”
Sanchez then ran out of the building and saw the teen at his window.
“I saw him put his hands out of the window, and then he got on top of the windowsill and sat down and jumped onto the street with his hands up and the brush in his hands,” Sanchez said.
“And that’s when they shot him.”
Sanchez said that a cop who was wearing a white commanding officer’s shirt, later asked another officer, “Why did you shoot him?”
The police sources said that before the shooting, the teen had been shouting at them from the window.
After he jumped out, they said, he disobeyed their order to ‘Freeze!’ and tried to cross the street.
“All I heard were mad gunshots,” said Andre’s sister, Jazmin, 23. “And that’s when I started running.
“After they shot him, they put handcuffs on him and dragged him away,” she said. “He looked like he was dead.”
Additional reporting by Eric Lenkowitz