‘A little too close to home’: Residents react after fatal shooting at Park Slope hospital

Life appeared largely back to normal Friday morning in Park Slope, a day after a 62-year-old patient experiencing a mental health crisis barricaded himself with others and threatened to kill people with a sharp object before being shot and killed by NYPD officers at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital on Jan. 8.

Police said the man, who was admitted to the hospital the day before, began cutting himself with a makeshift weapon fashioned from a broken piece of a toilet seat. Authorities said he barricaded himself inside a room on the hospital’s eighth floor with an elderly patient and a staff member, prompting a police response and a brief hospital lockdown.

After multiple attempts to subdue him with Tasers failed and officers said he advanced toward them with the weapon, police opened fire, killing him. No hostages or patients were physically injured, and the shooting remains under investigation by the NYPD Force Investigation Division.

Across the street from the hospital, street vendor Yusuf has been operating a food truck at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Sixth Street for 28 years. He told Brooklyn Paper that hospital visitors frequently ask him to hold weapons or drugs while they go inside — sometimes offering money.

“Some people come, they have knives and stuff, and they come to me, ‘Can you hold it for me?’ All the time, every day. I’m like, ‘No, I can’t hold it,” Yusuf told Brooklyn Paper.

A street vendor says he has seen visitors hide marijuana, cigarettes and weapons in shrubbery outside NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital before entering the building.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

Yusuf said he has also seen visitors stash items in shrubbery behind a fence near the emergency entrance before entering the hospital, then retrieve them afterward.

Josephine Clark was returning from an appointment at the Center for Community Health, a large outpatient facility on Sixth Street across from Methodist Hospital. She said her doctor told her the building had not been put on alert while the incident was unfolding.

“It would be a good idea to alert everyone by text or something when something like that happens,” Clark said.

When Brooklyn Paper asked about the apparent lack of notification to other departments, a NewYork-Presbyterian spokesperson referred questions about the incident to the NYPD.

“We’re referring questions to NYPD. Due to patient privacy, we cannot provide additional details. The hospital is open and accepting patients,” the statement read.

NYPD Counterterrorism officers respond to a shooting at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope on Jan. 8.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

Park Slope resident Toby said she learned about the shooting on the radio Friday morning.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, that’s the hospital that I use.’ I just hope everybody who was involved is okay,” she said.

Toby told Brooklyn Paper she was surprised by the incident, given the hospital’s security procedures.

“Anytime you go to the hospital, it’s like going to an airport. I don’t know how this person got through with some kind of a weapon. [Security asks] ‘Where are you going?’ And you have to get the band on your hand,” she said. “ It’s surprising if he somehow got in without going through all of that. But yeah, it’s shocking. And of course, you never think of things happening like that in this area.”

New York City native and Park Slope resident Denise Bergman Goldberg said that while the neighborhood is generally safe, it is still part of the city.

“People say, ‘Oh, it’s Park Slope.’ But, you know, it’s still New York. My cars get broken into, and catalytic converters get stolen. But, I don’t know, it’s a little close to home,” Bergman Goldman said, adding that she was also puzzled by how a patient could access a weapon.

NYPD officers respond to a shooting at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope on Jan. 8.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

“The last time I went to the ER [at Methodist], we had to go through security getting into the hospital, and there are security guards everywhere. I’ll keep going to Methodist Emergency, but I’ll be much more leery,” she said.

Assembly Member Robert Carroll, who was briefed on-site by NYPD and Methodist officials after the incident, said he was confident NewYork-Presbyterian would review its protocols to ensure patient and staff safety.

“The death last night at Methodist Hospital, where the police shot and killed a man wielding a knife who had barricaded himself in a room with another patient and a hospital worker, is a tragedy,” Carroll said.

NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital resumed normal operations after an NYPD-involved shooting on Jan. 8.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

Council Member Shahana Hanif, whose district includes Park Slope, thanked officers from the 78th Precinct and first responders who secured the hospital.

“My heart is heavy after last night’s shooting and hostage situation at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, which put patients, healthcare workers, and families in terrifying danger and resulted in a tragic loss of life,” Hanif told Brooklyn Paper. “I am grieving for everyone who was harmed, threatened, or forced to endure fear in a place that should always be safe. Our focus must remain on the people who were put in danger and on preventing crises like this from happening again. This tragedy underscores the urgent need to fully fund mental health care, crisis intervention, and community-based supports so people get help long before situations escalate into violence.”