Suspect dead, police officer injured after man opens fire on NYPD police attempting to serve a warrant at Manhattan apartment

NEW YORK CITY - A city man is dead and an NYPD officer injured after a shooting in Lower Manhattan, CBS-2 in New York reported. 

Officers responded to an apartment building to question and serve a warrant on 43-year-old Kent Edwards, a career criminal who was wanted relative to a shooting on the Upper East Side in October. Police say Edwards had 11 prior arrests, including for rape and strangulation. 

The incident took place just before noon on Thursday, Dec. 14. Police were advised by two women in the second-floor apartment that Edwards was in the bathroom and was armed. When officers arrived, Edwards barricaded himself inside an apartment.

Officers called for the Emergency Service Unit to respond, which began a three-hour effort to negotiate with Edwards to gain his surrender. Those efforts failed despite officers deploying a small drone to reach him. Edwards took a broom and knocked it out of the air, disabling it, police said. 

“I saw the cops come,” Diana Aldahondo, a witness, said. “I seen a man screaming out the window with a gun…when we heard gun, everybody ran.” 

According to The Daily News, Aldahondo, 64, described the scene as “chaotic,” noting that “an invasion of cops” swarmed the building. 

“Body armor, shields, everything," Aldahondo said of the ESU. “They tried to talk him out, they really tried, but they did what they had to do.” 

NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said of efforts to use technology to reduce the risk to officers, “They tried to use a lot of technology, but a lot of the technology wasn’t really helping [the officers] out the way they needed it.” 

After efforts to coax Edwards out failed, they deployed an “avatar” -a camera on wheels–and followed closely behind into the apartment, police said. 

“When they came with the avatar, that’s when he came out and started shooting,” Maddrey said of Edwards. Edwards fired four times at officers with a 9mm pistol, with three of those shots striking the ballistic shields. The other struck an officer in his bulletproof vest. 

Maddrey said the shots Edwards fired “easily could’ve been inside our officers.” 

“We have three bullets into the bunkers, three bullets inside of bunkers, which could have easily been three bullets inside of our officers,’ Maddrey said. 

Officers returned fire, striking Edwards twice, police said. 

“The lead officer who fired also took the bunker, the shield, and was able to use it to knock the male down, pin him down while other members were able to put him in handcuffs,” Maddrey said. 

Police were attempting to serve the warrant on Edwards stemming from an Oct. 18 shooting outside a bar on the Upper East Side, police said. 

Edwards got into an argument with a man and his wife inside the bar over using a photo booth, police said. The argument escalated and ended up outside on the street, where Edwards allegedly shot the man in the leg and pistol-whipped him in the head. 

“It sounded like fireworks, four fireworks,” a neighbor said. “Whole bunch of the police officers were around, and they said we have something going on; we’re gonna make sure you’re safe, so go back in. Sure enough, I went back in.” 

“When they brought him out on a stretcher, he was still alive, but they were doing chest compressions on him,” Aldahondo said. “It was very scary.” 

Edwards was transported to a nearby hospital, however, he succumbed to his wounds. Meanwhile, police officers were taken to a nearby hospital as well. None were seriously injured. 

The Daily News reported Edwards spent 12 years in prison for attempted rape and sale of a controlled substance. He was released in 2012, according to records. 

“The police were looking for him, but he was on the run,” said Edwards’ ex-girlfriend, who asked not to be named. “He was on parole and didn’t want to check in anymore.” 

This past February, Edwards was arrested for rape. Last year, he was arrested for strangulation, and he also had an active arrest warrant for failing to register as a sex offender, police said. 

“He was a convicted rapist,” the ex-girlfriend told The Daily News. “He kept a lot of things from me, much of what he did was hidden.”