The family of 49-year-old Gregory Delpeche wants an investigation into the NYPD officers who accidentally shot him in the head while trying to deal with a suspect who had pulled out a knife.
Delpeche was riding the subway on September 15 when a stray bullet from a police officer struck him in the head while his train car was sitting at a station in Brooklyn.
According to police, two cops were trying to apprehend a suspect named Derell Mickells, 38, who was accused of jumping over a turnstile and failing to pay his train fare. The officers said he ignored their commands to stop, and eventually pulled a knife out and started to approach them. They say they fired a Taser but it failed to stop Mickells, so they had to resort to their pistols. In total the officers fire nine times, hitting Mickells in the abdomen.
But bullets also hit others. One went into Gregory Delpeche’s head, one hit one of the cops in the armpit, and another struck a woman in the buttocks. Delpeche’s family said he needed emergency surgery and is in critical condition at the hospital after undergoing brain surgery to reduce the swelling in his head. He is currently in intensive care at Kings County Hospital.
The woman shot in the backside and the officer who took a bullet under his arm were both treated and released.
Delpeche’s cousin Gregory Nougues said he “broke down” when getting the news about Delpeche, who he described as quiet and hardworking. Nougues said his cousin has worked at Woodhull Hospital for two decades, and no one could have predicted he would be dangerously wounded riding the train to his job.
Nick Liakas is an attorney for the family, and he said the shooting never would have happened if police had used “proper de-escalation measures.” He’s asking the NYPD and its commissioner to release the full body camera footage from every officer on the scene.
City councilman Chris Banks agreed, saying he wanted to “paint the picture of a reckless NYPD.” He called officers cavalier and callous for firing guns in a train station. Banks said a $2.90 train fare ended getting a man shot in the head, a cop shot in the arm, and an innocent woman shot in the rear end.
