A mentally ill woman fatally shot by a police sergeant in her Bronx apartment had put down a pair of scissors and was talking with an emergency medical technician when several officers rushed her, the technician testified on Thursday.
The medic, Brittney Mullings, gave an account of the minutes leading up to the shooting of Deborah Danner, a 66-year-old schizophrenic woman, that diverged sharply from the narrative that a defense lawyer for Sgt. Hugh Barry has laid out in court papers and in an opening statement.
Sergeant Barry, 32, a nine-year veteran, is on trial in State Supreme Court in the Bronx on charges of murder, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. His lawyers say he fired in self-defense after Ms. Danner picked up a baseball bat and started to swing it at his head.
The Bronx district attorney’s office has argued that Sergeant Barry ignored his training, provoked the confrontation and then overreacted. Sergeants are trained to isolate emotionally disturbed people in a safe space and patiently wait them out, talking calmly until specially trained emergency services officers arrive.
Ms. Danner was killed at about 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 18, 2016, inside her cluttered seventh-floor apartment at 630 Pugsley Avenue in the Castle Hill section of the Bronx. Sergeant Barry, five other officers and two emergency medical technicians had been called to persuade her to go to a hospital. Earlier, she had been ranting loudly in the hallway.
Continue reading the main storyHer death came amid a national debate over police shootings and prompted protests in New York, led by elected leaders.
Sergeant Barry’s lawyer, Andrew C. Quinn, said in his opening statement that his client talked in a calm voice to Ms. Danner when he arrived at the apartment and persuaded her to lay down a pair of scissors. But after he could not persuade her to come farther than the doorway of her bedroom, he and other officers tried to subdue her. She retreated into the bedroom and picked up a bat. He drew his gun and told her to drop it. She began to swing it at him and he fired twice, Mr. Quinn said.
Senior police officials outlined a similar version events in the immediate aftermath of the killing.
Ms. Mullings, however, said Ms. Danner had agreed to put down the scissors and come out of her bedroom before Sergeant Barry even arrived. Ms. Danner insisted that she be allowed to speak to a medical technician rather than the police officers, who had backed off and had let Ms. Mullings take the lead.
Ms. Mullings said she entered the apartment and stood a few feet from Ms. Danner, who had nothing in her hands. She tried to explain to the distraught woman why the police had been called. Ms. Danner was no longer screaming, she said, but was still agitated and was talking loudly.
“She was still trying to figure out who called 911 and why we were there,” Ms. Mullings said.
While they were talking, Sergeant Barry arrived and passed behind Ms. Mullings into the living room. Ms. Mullings said that the sergeant conferred with another officer a few feet behind her, but that he did not speak to her or to Ms. Danner.
Ms. Mullings said she told Ms. Danner that the medics wanted only to check on her health. “I didn’t really get to finish the conversation with her,” she recalled.
She said she heard someone behind her say, “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?” Ms. Danner said.
All at once, Ms. Danner turned and “scurried back” into her bedroom, Ms. Mullings said, followed by the six officers. She said she could only see the top of Ms. Danner’s head but heard her screaming. A minute later, she heard an officer yell, “Get down!” and then two shots.
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