but police\u2019s preliminary account was shared by Assistant Chief James McCarthy<\/a>, commanding officer of Patrol Borough Manhattan South, during a press conference late Thursday night.<\/p>\nAccording to McCarthy, at approximately 10:53 p.m., officers on foot patrol were flagged down by two individuals in the vicinity of Bedford Street and 6th Avenue in the West Village.<\/p>\n
Those individuals informed police that they were involved in a collision with a BMW that attempted to flee the scene.<\/p>\n
![\"NYPD](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/UM6KW7PGFZFL7HUVJEX7SIR3SU.jpeg\")
The imitation firearm recovered from the scene of the shooting of Dmitriy Zass, 37, in Manhattan’s West Village on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026.(Courtesy of the NYPD)<\/p>\n
That BMW was stuck in traffic when officers approached, the chief said. It was then that a man, later identified as Zass, allegedly stepped out of the BMW and pointed what appeared to be a firearm at the officers, prompting them to shoot.<\/p>\n
It was later determined that Zass was holding an imitation gun, a Sig Sauer air pistol that was recovered at the scene, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.<\/p>\n
Despite repeated commands from officers to drop the weapon, Zass maintained possession of the air pistol after being shot and said nothing, McCarthy said.<\/p>\n
Officers immediately requested EMS to transport Zass to an area hospital, McCarthy added. It was at the hospital that Zass was pronounced deceased at 11:17 p.m.<\/p>\n
The two officers involved in the shooting were taken to an area hospital for evaluation, police said.<\/p>\n
\u200bABC7 reported a witness said he saw the BMW driving on Sixth Avenue, \u201cthe wrong way, with its bumper dragging on the ground, around this corner, pursued by a minivan. Stopped at that stop sign, then backed into the minivan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Official response<\/p>\n
On Friday, Attorney General Letitia James\u2019 Office of Special Investigation announced it was opening an investigation into Zass\u2019 death. <\/p>\n
James\u2019 office said law requires the Office of Special Investigation to assess \u201cevery incident reported to it where a police officer or a peace officer…may have caused the death of a person by an act or omission.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani took a seemingly cautious approach in his response to Zass\u2019 death, as well as a second police-involved shooting on Thursday, waiting until Friday morning to post on X. <\/p>\n
\u201cLast night\u2019s shootings at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and in the West Village are devastating to all New Yorkers,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI know many are eager for answers. The NYPD is conducting an internal investigation\u2014I will work with Commissioner Tisch to ensure this is as through and swift as possible.”<\/p>\n
When asked Friday why he hadn\u2019t commented sooner, Mamdani said he wanted to be intentional in the way he communicated to New Yorkers about the incident. <\/p>\n
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch posted Friday on X, \u201cEvery day, the men and women of the NYPD put their lives on the line to protect New Yorkers. Last night (Thursday) was no different. Officers were engaged in two police-involved shootings, and there is every indication that their actions were nothing short of heroic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Owen Reiter contributed reporting for this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 The man shot and killed by NYPD officers in Manhattan on Thursday night was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-96009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}