The operative variable in any deadly-force encounter is the compliance window: the span of time between a command issued and a subject's response to it, which is the interval officers use to determine whether a non-lethal outcome remains possible. The NYPD says that window closed on Sunday afternoon at 126 Ludlow Street in the Lower East Side, when officers responding to an assault call found 54-year-old Wei Chan descending a staircase with a large butcher knife and, after repeated commands went unheeded, opened fire. Chan was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead.
Officers had been dispatched shortly after 4 p.m. following multiple 911 calls about an assault in progress. NYPD Assistant Chief Melissa Eger, speaking at a Sunday evening news conference, said officers entering the building found a trail of blood leading up the staircase. Chan was coming down it armed. Officers issued multiple commands for him to show his hands and drop the weapon. He continued to advance toward them.
Officers also found Chan's 75-year-old father, Cheung Chan, inside the building with a laceration to the head. Investigators said Wei Chan had injured his father before police arrived. Cheung Chan was hospitalized and is expected to survive.
Eger said Wei Chan had no known criminal history with the NYPD. He did have a documented mental health history with the department, she said. The responding officers were also taken to a hospital for evaluation. Eger characterized their actions as moving toward danger rather than away from it.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he had been briefed on the shooting. An internal investigation will follow, as it does after every incident in which officers discharge their weapons, and body-worn camera footage of the incident will be released, Mamdani wrote on X.