Police Shoot 62-Year-Old Former NYPD Officer in Brooklyn Hospital
In a shocking turn of events, police officers fired shots at Michael Lynch, 62, a former NYPD officer, inside a hospital room in Brooklyn on Thursday evening. Authorities say Lynch had barricaded himself in the eighth-floor room, threatening to kill two people with a broken toilet part and claiming to have cut himself with it.
According to police officials, Lynch had previously served as an officer in the 1990s before resigning from the force. It's unclear what brought him to the hospital that evening or why he made those threats.
Hospital staff initially reported a violent individual armed with a knife when officers arrived at around 5:27 pm. When officers entered the room, they found Lynch barricaded inside with a security guard in his 50s and a patient in her 70s. The police spokesperson stated that hospital staff told them of a man who had cut himself on a broken toilet and was threatening to harm others.
Police spent several minutes interacting with Lynch, issuing verbal commands multiple times before firing a Taser and then their guns. However, the spokesperson claimed neither struck him. In an effort to gain entry, officers deployed Tasers again but were unable to dislodge him from his position.
It took another four minutes for police to successfully breach the room, leading to Lynch's fatal shooting by police officers. The exact circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear, with authorities refusing to provide specifics on how many times they fired or where the shot was delivered.
The hospital has declined to comment on the incident citing patient privacy concerns but assures that services are operational and accepting new patients.
In a shocking turn of events, police officers fired shots at Michael Lynch, 62, a former NYPD officer, inside a hospital room in Brooklyn on Thursday evening. Authorities say Lynch had barricaded himself in the eighth-floor room, threatening to kill two people with a broken toilet part and claiming to have cut himself with it.
According to police officials, Lynch had previously served as an officer in the 1990s before resigning from the force. It's unclear what brought him to the hospital that evening or why he made those threats.
Hospital staff initially reported a violent individual armed with a knife when officers arrived at around 5:27 pm. When officers entered the room, they found Lynch barricaded inside with a security guard in his 50s and a patient in her 70s. The police spokesperson stated that hospital staff told them of a man who had cut himself on a broken toilet and was threatening to harm others.
Police spent several minutes interacting with Lynch, issuing verbal commands multiple times before firing a Taser and then their guns. However, the spokesperson claimed neither struck him. In an effort to gain entry, officers deployed Tasers again but were unable to dislodge him from his position.
It took another four minutes for police to successfully breach the room, leading to Lynch's fatal shooting by police officers. The exact circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear, with authorities refusing to provide specifics on how many times they fired or where the shot was delivered.
The hospital has declined to comment on the incident citing patient privacy concerns but assures that services are operational and accepting new patients.
, a 62-year-old former NYPD officer gets shoot down by cops in hospital room, all because he was armed with a broken toilet part & claimed to have cut himself 
. it's like something straight out of a movie, but this is real life 
. what's going on with our mental health system? why are people feeling so desperate that they resort to making threats & barricading themselves in hospital rooms? 
the fact that police spent 4 minutes trying to gain entry & then shot him anyway is just heartbreaking 
.
This is just heartbreaking. A 62-year-old man with a history of serving in law enforcement, feeling so desperate and out of options that he barricades himself in a hospital room. The image of him cutting himself on a broken toilet part and threatening to harm others is devastating 
Was this just a case of being too old for modern mental health systems to handle properly? 
Or was it a failure of communication and de-escalation tactics between law enforcement and the individual in crisis? I don't know, but one thing is clear: we need to do better to support people like Michael Lynch who are struggling with mental health issues. 
I'm really disappointed in how this situation went down. Like, I get that police have a tough job, but 62 years old? That's not exactly old. And what was he even thinking with those threats? 
The Taser didn't work, so they had to bring out the big guns... literally.
hospitals are supposed to be safe spaces, not places of danger. authorities need to figure out what went down here & make sure it never happens again 
. I mean, think about it, a guy barricaded himself in a hospital room threatening to kill people? He's basically asking for it, right? And those officers were just trying to protect everyone else from getting hurt. If he wanted to play hero or whatever, that's not the cops' problem. They had to take action, and honestly, I think they did what needed to be done 
. Don't get me wrong, tragic, all that jazz, but sometimes you gotta make tough choices in a situation like this 
.