A knife-wielding man in New York City was disarmed by a store clerk and then shot by two NYPD officers in an early morning June incident outside a deli.
The man, 55-year-old Peyman Bahadoran, claims to have been having a mental breakdown while walking his dog and carrying a 12-inch Defender Xtreme serrated hunting knife in a sheath on his right hip, according to the Daily News.
Bahadoran was disarmed before being shot in the arm and back by two NYPD officers, but he did lunge at an officer before being shot.
The NYPD recently released security and body camera footage of the incident, which Bahadoran’s lawyer says proves his client was unarmed and not posing a danger to the officers.
The new footage “provides additional evidence that he did not pose a deadly threat to the officers and they shot and paralyzed this man for absolutely no reason,” said Bahadoran’s lawyer, Earl Ward.
“It further disproves the claim by the department that he was ‘reaching’ and ‘lunging.’ He posed no deadly risk and now there’s a bullet lodged in his spine and he may never walk again.”
SEE ALSO: WATCH: Antifa Clashes with Proud Boys During ‘Mostly Peaceful’ Portland Protests
The NYPD issued a statement of its own, claiming that the officers were in a state of heightened alert after another officer had been slashed in Brooklyn hours earlier and didn’t realize Bahadoran no longer had his knife. They also maintain the Bahadoran lunged at the officers and was reaching for his empty knife sheath.
“When responding officers arrived, they saw the individual motion toward a large sheath on his waistband,” said the statement.
In the video, Officer Jillian Suarez and Officer Melissa Brown can be seen walking into the deli with Bahadoran close behind. Bahadoran begins shouting at Brown and pulls out his knife.
Brown unholsters her taser, but Bahadoran walks towards her with his knife raised and chases her behind the counter. Suarez exits the store and calls for backup, leaving Brown by herself with two store employees.
Bahadoran continues waving the knife until one of the employees hands him a package of cigarettes. When Bahadoran places his knife on the counter to pick up the cigarettes, the employees snatches it up and hands it to Brown.
Suarez is standing at the door pointing her service weapon at Bahadoran, but he walks towards her and shoves her outside as he leaves.
Three additional officers arrive on the scene, and all surround Bahadoran with their service weapons drawn. Bahadoran shoves one of the arriving officers, and Suarez and Officer Bryan Rozanski each fire one shot.
Bahadoran falls down immediately and lies still.
SEE ALSO: WATCH: Concealed Carriers Pull Firearms on Protesters in Eugene and Austin, One Protester Dies
He was transported to a hospital where he was treated for his injuries. He survived but is suffering from paralysis, according to his lawyer.
Bahadoran, a former Wall Street Trader, told the Daily News that he suffers from a bipolar condition and was agitated by ongoing protests in the city over the killing of George Floyd.
“I was manic, paranoid, scared, anxious,” Bahadoran said. “You are watching everything. You are doing things that are not normal.”
Bahadoran is out on bail while awaiting trial on charges including attempted robbery and menacing a police officer.
Dropped like a hot tater !
My repair job often takes me into prisons and a particular super violent sex offender facility that used to be a prison. The sex offenders there are so bad that after they serve and complete their prison sentences they are turned over the Department Of Human Services Mental Health. These guys are so violent that they will get into your face and tell you, and mean it, that there was nothing wrong with raping some little kid and then lighting them on fire to kill them…that there is nothing wrong with them, it’s society that is wrong. These guys are so serious that they can’t be returned into society, so to protect society they are locked away in the tombs, literally. We’re talking about rapists that beat and rape each other inside this place. But annually they have to come up for revue in front of a board to see if they’ve been rehabbed. They never are. But since the mental health people housing these very very very bad predators fall under the Department Of Human Services and not the Department Of Corrections, there are no arms allowed or stored in the facility. Unlike the prisons, there is no armory, no arms. The ONLY item allowed to be carried by their officers is mace/pepper spray. If things get so bad they have a “Tact Team” of corrections officers from a nearby prison about 20 minutes away and across the river respond and deal with them, the situation.
So one time I’m in the facility and a couple of the residents that didn’t like each other were working out in the weight room and started beating the hell out of each other with steel dumbbells. They were really whipping on each other so the in charge sent the biggest officer they had into the weight room to break it up with mace. The two battling sex offenders stopped beating on each other and turned their joint attention onto that guy and were murdering him. They were killing the guy. A call for help went out to the prison, so they suited up their tact team with gear and weaponry and loaded them up on a bus, and across the river they came to the super violent sex offender facility. I don’t know how word got out to the sex offenders that they were about to be descended upon but it did and you could hear “Oh, oh we’re in trouble now” (not the words they used) from all of the cells on the galleries and the guys murdering the officer stopped and raced back to their cells to hide. TOO LATE!!! That bus drove up and the tact team unloaded and stormed into the facility and beat the living hell out of every resident that they encountered on the way back to the two that started it all and when they got to them, they greased them. They turned those guys into hamburger. It was brutal. When it was over and the corrections officers tact team was loading their bus to head back, some laughed and told me “They made us suit and arm up and come all the way across the river, and for that there was no turning back and they had to pay. We needed the exercise anyway”. And pay they did. I knew all of those officers on that tact team from dealings with them at their prison. Good guys. If they have to come get you, it isn’t going to be free. You are going to pay that.
The guy got his knife taken knife by the clerk in the store. 4 cops should have been able to beat the shit out of one jerkoff. If the guy got shot in the store while threating to throw the knife that would have been legit. If your going to be a cop (female or male) it should me mandatory to have skills in hand to hand combat against an unarmed assailant. The clerk was slick.
Terrible police work. Get that gal behind a desk before someone gets hurt.
When a man has a knife and raises it above and behind his head, he intends to throw it at you. You may not be able to afford to wait till he is in charge/stabbing distance to shoot. I can throw a knife from that position aiming it at center mass of a target and hit it proficiently at 20 feet or less. One officer was smart enough to retreat outside and the other behind the clerks counter where it has plexiglass barrier. When the guy raised his knife above his head in a ready to throw position the cops should have shot him. They shown restraint.
“One officer was smart enough to retreat outside…” retreat outside? yes and leave her partner to deal with the crook alone. she should have been fired. she could have called for help inside the store just as well. what are they hiring today?
ed, retired cop.
No necessarily true. Some knife fighting methods use a high knife starting position.
What’s wrong with charging him with Attempted Murder???
What an ultramaroon.
This never happens on Blue Bloods.
Maybe he wanted to go down buy cop. Seriously who pulls a knife out and confronts two cops
Nobody will care about this. The guy that got shot was white
The footage from the body worn cameras is terrible, Camera stabilization is readily available and not expensive anymore. For example, most drones have stabilized cameras. There’s no reason why police body worn cameras don’t have this feature for equipment that is many times used in life/death situations.
you beat me to it! i would never want to be in a position like that with someone i know can’t back me up is my backup,you’d be pretty much on your own.they did the same shit in the military.
Guess that p.o.s. won’t lunge at any more police officers.
I feel real sorry for that little dog. Hopefully the NYPD will find a decent owner for the little fellow.
What happened to the poor dog?
Having been involved in situation in 1988 while working with two Female Correction officers in the BRIG in Brooklyn NYC and having them both run vs assist me in an inmate initiated altercation. I decided that working with female officers was not a good long term life choice. This was the 3rd incident where female offices chose to run vs fight and provide back up. Not all women are a good choice for LE, some are great at it and understand that you have to sometimes fight with people and back up your partners… Others are just Fn clueless quota hires.
As a former police Captain my opinion is that too many female officers are dangerously inept and afraid. I believe that a male officer should have the right to refuse to work with one as a partner. NYPD FATALITIES have resulted from cowardice on the part of attending female officers. Sorry, all you 21st century feminists of both sexes, but the U.S. constitution, which I revere, says “all men are created equal.” And I too hold that truth to be self-evident. The fact that no females were mentioned is not an oversight. They’re important and nice and some make good cops – but IN GENERAL they are not up to par in hand-to-hand combat or gunfights.
totally agree and this is from a retired cop hired in the early 70s.
That’s why the bars should be set higher for the female LE candidates. Generally, the female LE should
be assigned a non-contact type of work requiring cognitive skills that men lack. I think the bulk of genes
in men and woman are to blame for the behavioral differences. I would not go on patrol with a lady cop.
Criminals are violent and indiscriminate. Most are mental cases and that’s about the size of it.
Its miracle the cops doint shoot each other and its clear the women had no idea what to do
Agreed, they need to go back to the academy and remediate their use of force training. The time to shoot was when he still had the knife or when he lunged for the one officer’s gun as they exited the store. The first officer pulls out her taser when he presented a knife. Wrong! That’s a deadly force situation and the gun needed to be deployed. The second officer left the store during this time. WTF? Meanwhile, the first officer finally points her firearm at him while he still has the knife, does not shoot, and the clerk is the only one to take action and takes the knife away. Then the second officer finally returns and he lunges at her while she has her gun out; does not fire but gives him an opportunity to grab her gun.
What a Cluster! These two need to be meter maids if they want work for the police, because they clearly do not have the training and skills to be a sworn officer.
She drew her radio, backed outside, and left her partner and customers in there with a armed fruitcake. A lot of mistakes and bad calls by her here. She knew he was unarmed.
What a joke! I am surprised both officers didn’t lock themselves in the bathroom or take off running out of the store. Oh wait, one of them does run back out of the store. My God man, is the best they can do to remedy the situation at hand? Scream and take 400 steps back. WTF? The dog had more of a winning mind set. Truly pathetic if this is what we have protecting us.
No “Real Men” were seen nor hurt in this video!!!
Except the clerk who actually disarmed the man.
Lunged for her gun, she should have given it to him peacefully. ..Oh wait, HE’S WHITE! OMG! Why is this news. Glad for the dog though.
These cops suck. They needed to drop this asshat right away, the more you back up the greater the chance of tripping or screwing up a straight forward self-defensive shooting.