-Caveat Lector-
"*Mayor Giuliani defended the fatal police shooting of a mentally
disturbed, hammer-wielding Jewish man in Brooklyn, which resulted in hundreds
of angry Hasidic protesters taking to the streets of the heavily Orthodox
neighbourhood ..."
Jews Divided on Police Shooting
By DONNA DE LA CRUZ
.c The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - City officials received a public show of support from several
community leaders a day after the fatal police shooting of a hammer-wielding,
emotionally disturbed man in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
City Councilman Noach Dear and several Jewish leaders defended the police
response during a joint news conference Tuesday with the mayor and police
officials.
``We have enough of a relationship to believe in the Police Department, and
that the officers did this because they had to,'' said Rabbi Shmuel
Lefkowitz.
Four officers fired 12 shots at Gary Busch on Monday night after he refused
orders to drop a 11-inch claw hammer he was using to beat a sergeant.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir said a
preliminary investigation indicated the officers acted appropriately.
Officers had tried to subdue the 6-foot-3, 159-pound man with pepper spray
before the shooting, police said.
``This isn't the movies,'' Safir said. ``You don't shoot hammers out of
hands. You don't shoot people in the leg.'' If a suspect uses a weapon in
exerting deadly force, police shoot with the intention of stopping the
suspect, he said.
Other community leaders questioned whether deadly force was necessary. The
shooting prompted hundreds to demonstrate into the early morning hours
Tuesday in Borough Park, a predominantly Hasidic neighborhood.
``Do you mean to tell me, in a situation like this, the police shoot to
kill?'' state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn, said Tuesday in front of
the rowhouse where Busch lived.
At another news conference Tuesday, the Rev. Al Sharpton called the city to
rally together against police brutality. The black activist has led several
marches criticizing police in the past, most recently for the shooting of an
unarmed African immigrant earlier this year. Four police officers have been
charged with murder in that case.
Monday's incident began when police responding to a 911 call found Busch in
his apartment holding a claw hammer. He was wearing a prayer shawl and
tefillin - leather boxes containing pieces of Scripture that are attached to
the body with straps.
Busch, 31, refused orders to drop the hammer, according to police. He had
used the same hammer on Sunday when he allegedly attacked a man who was
sitting in a car, said Lt. Stephen Biegel, a police spokesman.
Busch walked toward an officer, who stumbled. Sgt. Terrence O'Brien stepped
in between them and Busch began hitting O'Brien with the hammer, Biegel said.
Again, police ordered Busch to drop the hammer and when he ignored them, they
fired.
Some neighbors said they were leery of Busch because of his behavior.
``People were very wary of him because he acted strangely,'' said resident
Simcha Erez, 24. ``He would talk to himself and wore a heavy coat in the
summer. People stayed away from him.''
Busch's mother, Doris Busch Boskey, told reporters her son was a former
medical student at Mount Sinai Medical School, which he left in 1991 because
of a kidney ailment.
``I think that there was a lot of depression, some mania,'' she told
reporters at her home. ``But he was never violent. He was never aggressive.''
``We can't draw guns. We have to talk,'' Mrs. Boskey said. ``You don't just
kill people. There has to be another way.''
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