May 30, 2009 7:20 am US/Eastern
Those Haunting Words: 'We Just Shot A Cop'
CBS 2 HD Learns More Details Of Tragic Accidental Shooting Of NYPD Officer By Another Of The City's Finest
Witness Accounts Differ; Race An Underlying Sticking Point
Reporting
Lou Young
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Officer Omar Edwards was accidentally shot by another NYPD cop on May 28, 2009.
CBS
It happened in a matter of seconds. CBS 2 HD has learned more about the shooting that claimed the life of a rookie NYPD officer.
Omar Edwards was shot and killed by fellow officer Andrew Dunton. On Friday night Police Commissioner Ray Kelly visited Edwards' family in their Brooklyn home and offered condolences and support to the devastated relatives.
"We just shot a cop." That's what one witness claims to have heard from the plainclothes cops on scene as they stood over the body of off-duty officer Edwards late Thursday night.
Edwards, a black man in plainclothes himself, had just gotten off work when he spotted someone burglarizing his car. He pulled his gun and gave chase and that's what the arriving officers saw as they stepped from their unmarked cruiser -- a black man chasing another person with a gun.
"One of the officers after exiting the vehicle fired six times from a 9mm Glock," Kelly said.
"It was seconds. It was seconds after it happened immediately. Everything happened so fast," witness Manuel Cardona said, describing the incident as he saw it.
Tasha Dukes, the victim's neighbor, didn't dispute what others saw, but in her mind she said she knows for certain what the responding cops saw.
"It's horrible. I think they just saw a black man running. No questions asked," Dukes said.
That's critical question. Did the officers identify themselves before they fired? The official version says yes, but one witness said the cops were yelling as the shots were fired, and another described Officer Edwards going down when he turned to run after the fleeing perp.
"Officer gets out of the car. He decides to tell the officer that got shot something. The black guy that was in his car decided to take off running and then I hear four shots," Cardona said. "I guess the officer shot him while he was getting ready to take off running."
The two cops were 15 feet apart. The medical examiner said Officer Edwards was hit three times -- once through the left arm, once in the chest and the fatal wound in the back -- that bullet pierced his lung and heart.
Police said they arrested the man Edwards was chasing -- a known crack addict -- and said his account exactly dovetails with what the plainclothes cops are saying.
The shooter, Officer Dunton, we're told returned to his Long Island home on Friday visibly shaken. Dunton is 30years old and has been with the force four years.
Edwards was 25, with only two years under his belt. He leaves behind a wife and two children, an infant and a toddler. He is survived by both parents.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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