Police Kill Van Driver on Belt Parkway After 911 Callers Feared an Abduction

Officers of the New York Police Department fatally shot a white van's driver Saturday night on a stretch of the Belt Parkway along the southern Brooklyn shore, shortly after two people called 911 fearing that someone was being abducted inside the vehicle.

Police had not released the man's name by Sunday morning.

The first calls came in around 7:19 that evening from Coney Island, Charles Minch, an NYPD assistant chief, told reporters. A man and a woman dialed 911 separately. One caller said someone was "kicking and screaming" inside the van, and the woman on the second call described repeated cries of "Let me go," Minch said.

The callers flagged down officers close by. When the officers walked toward the van, its driver steered up onto the sidewalk and fled, police said. Officers then sent out the van's description by radio.

Before long the van was boxed in by thick traffic heading east on the parkway. Uniformed officers came up to it, shouted at the driver to step out and smashed the window on the front passenger side, Minch said.

Police said the driver then shifted between drive and reverse again and again, slamming into patrol cars as well as civilian cars that had people inside. Officers tried pepper spray and a Taser, and neither stopped him. As he kept striking cars, officers fired and hit him, Minch said.

Officers pulled the wounded man out and gave him CPR. An ambulance carried him to the Brooklyn campus of NYU Langone, where he was declared dead, police said. Several officers went for medical evaluation. The department has not disclosed how many officers fired or how many rounds were discharged, and has given no account of injuries to anyone in the civilian cars.

Police said the person heard screaming was an adult woman. She told investigators that she had been inside the van, had been the one screaming and had climbed out before officers first reached it, Minch said. Detectives later located her unhurt, police said, and her name was withheld.

Investigators think the screaming grew out of a domestic dispute, Minch said, and the inquiry is continuing. Police said the driver was already wanted in an unlawful imprisonment case from October in which the same woman was the alleged victim, and in a domestic assault case from early November. No court record of either case was publicly available.

Body cameras worn by officers recorded the confrontation, police said. The department's Force Investigation Division is examining the shooting.

Under state law, the Office of Special Investigation in the New York Attorney General's office examines each death in New York in which a police officer may have played a causal role. If it finds an officer caused a death, it either presents the evidence to a grand jury or issues a public report explaining why it did not. As of Sunday morning the office had not posted an announcement about Saturday's shooting.

The confrontation shut eastbound lanes of the parkway near Coney Island Avenue Saturday night. The NYPD urged drivers on social media to stay away from the area and to expect closures and delays.