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By
Andrea Keckley [former]
- August 25, 2021
Daily Stories
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Shooting
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Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert J. Contee III told the public that police fatally shot a man who was found asleep in his car with a gun during the early hours of Aug. 25.
A little before 3:00 a.m., officers were called to the area of Florida Avenue, NE, and New York Avenue, NE, after a man was reported to be unconscious behind the wheel of a vehicle that was stropped in traffic, Contee said during a briefing. Officers found the individual asleep in the vehicle, a black BMW, with a handgun in his waistband.
Contee estimated there was about a 20 minute gap between the time that the officers responded to the scene and the time they engaged the individual. He said they tried to wake him up without startling him.
“At some point the individual awakened from his sleep and at that point that individual was engaged by officers and at some point from there shots were fired,” Contee said.
The man was struck by gunfire and pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Contee said the view from the officers’ Body Worn Cameras is restricted due to the ballistic shields they were using.