The husband of the woman who was held at knifepoint by her son when police shot and killed him in a Bronx apartment Saturday said that the officer had no choice but to shoot.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Post he was in the apartment when the violent scene unfolded on the 13th floor of 2865 Creston Ave. in Bedford Park.
He said it was either his wife, whom he married just last month, or her 30-year-old son who was going to die during the frightening morning incident.
“I was standing next to the officer. The officer told him three times to (put) down the knife, let her go. He said, ‘Either kill me or I’ll kill her.’” he recalled, still clearly shaken Saturday night.
He said the emotionally disturbed man clenched his mother’s throat even harder and was about to cut her with what cops described as a “large carving knife ” when one of the officers fired.
“One shot, simple .. but if he wouldn’t have done that, my wife would be dead,” he said, crying. “He was using her as a body shield … it shouldn’t have happened, but it did. It ruined our Christmases.”
Police responded to the apartment around 11:20 a.m. and were met by a screaming 19-year-old woman with slash wounds on her face. The witness identified her as the suspect’s girlfriend, who lives with them, though the still-unidentified suspect did not.
When they entered the apartment, police discovered the disturbed man holding a “large carving” knife to his bleeding mother’s throat, cops said. He ignored officers’ numerous commands to drop the weapon.
“He said, ‘Shoot me, kill me or I’m gonna kill her,’ and that’s when he raised my wife up with a chokehold and right there is when the cop shot him,” the man said. “At the point when the cop shot him, she had lost consciousness because of the chokehold.”
The suspect was shot in the head and was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital, according to police.
“The cops are not at fault on this one,” the victim’s husband said. “It was a righteous shooting, and thank God that happened because if not, I’d be without my wife. The cops did everything they were supposed to do.”
“It was something like out of a f–king movie,” he added.
The suspect, who has a history of mental illness and substance abuse, appeared fine just a day earlier, he said. But on Saturday morning as he was in the bathtub, he heard his step-son making threatening remarks and called 911.
“Thank God we did because if not, my wife would’ve been dead and if the cops didn’t show up at the time they did — they showed up quickly — I would’ve gone up there and I would’ve been dead and he’d still be living. It would have been one or the other,” he said.
The suspect appeared to be hallucinating, possibly as a result of drugs, he said.
The man said his wife is doing “better” as she recovers in the hospital.
“I’m waiting to get back into the apartment to clean it up before my wife gets out so I can actually go to the hospital to make sure she’s good. I’ve spoken to her, and she’s all right.”
