GRISLY: Blood pools yesterday at the East Flatbush intersection where a woman was shot dead by a cop after crashing a stolen car. (Benny J. Stumbo)
Investigators pore over the scene of yesterday’s fatal shooting. (Benny J. Stumbo)
Shantel Davis apparently made a grab for an officer’s gun and it fired into her chest, sources said. The shooting is under investigation. (Benny J. Stumbo)
A woman out on bail for attempted murder and kidnapping was shot dead by a cop in Brooklyn yesterday after she crashed a stolen car and threw it in reverse to escape, police sources said.
Shantel Davis, 23, was blasted once in the chest as she struggled with Detective Phil Atkins, 44, in a Toyota Camry that had collided with a minivan in East Flatbush, the sources added.
Davis, who was to appear in court today on the attempted-murder rap, stumbled from the Toyota, which she had carjacked earlier this month, and collapsed.
“She hollered, ‘Call the ambulance! Please don’t let me die,’ ” witness George Ricketts said.
A woman from a crowd of about 100 onlookers “cradled [Davis] in her arms and rubbed her head,” said witness Nacole Daniel, 26.
“She was fighting, but there was so much blood gushing out,” said the woman who comforted Davis.
Davis, who had eight prior arrests, died at Kings County Hospital.
She had pulled a “wild” U-turn in front of Atkins and his partner, Daniel Guida, 27, shortly before 5:40 p.m. as they drove on Church Avenue in an unmarked police vehicle, sources said. Both plainclothes cops are from the Brooklyn South Narcotics Division.
Atkins and Guida saw her run several red lights before she slammed head-on into the van at East 38th Street and Church Avenue.
The officers approach her vehicle on foot. Guida was hit by the passenger door as Davis tried to escape from that side of the car.
Atkins, meanwhile, was on the driver side with “his gun out in one hand, attempting with his other hand to shift the car into park,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
Unable to escape through the passenger-side door, she got back into the driver’s seat. “She puts the car in reverse and hits the gas,”Browne said.
Guida was treated at Methodist Hospital for minor injuries.
Davis apparently made a grab for Atkins’ gun and it fired into her chest, sources said. The shooting is under investigation, a standard procedure.
“Based on the facts and circumstances, I am confident our detective’s actions were appropriate and justified,” said Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association.
Davis had been accused with two others of shooting a man, 29, four times in an April 2011 home invasion. She stole the Toyota from a woman, 58, on June 5.
Neighbors framed Davis as a woman who was attempting to get her life in order.
“I knew her very well, she was a very good person, she loved kids,” neighbor Kelvia Joseph, 24, said. “She was sweet. She did her stuff on the side, but she was a good person.”
Joseph had seen Davis just a day earlier, when she visited Joseph’s house to look up information on the Internet. Davis had been pursuing her GED and attempting to get her life in order according to Joseph.
“I saw Chantel yesterday, she came to the house and sat on my stoop,” Davis said. “She needed an internet connection for her school [work] and to check on her court case.”
Arthur Post, a retired corrections captain, told the Post that he had known Davis, who was raised by her grandmother, for a long time.
“She was a fine young lady,” Post, 76, said. “Always polite, no sir, yes sir.”