Ninth Street was locked down late on Sunday, Jan. 6 and early into the next morning after an emotionally disturbed — and possibly drugged out — man fired a shotgun inside his house.
Cops eventually arrested the gunman and charged him with weapons possession, harassment, menacing and reckless endangerment — but not until six hours after he started the standoff by terrorizing members of his family with a knife, police records show.
Police were called to the home, between Seventh and Eighth avenues, at around 8:20 pm after getting a call about a man with a knife.
Once at the apartment, the man’s mother, father and sister, who also live in the building, told cops that the man was on drugs and “acting erratically.”
They also told the two officers that there was a shotgun in the house. Hearing that, the cops got the family out of there and called for backup.
Officers from the Emergency Services Unit took up a tactical position on Ninth Street, and the suspect fired off two rounds from the shotgun, though it is unclear if he was firing at the officers.
At that point, cops set up an inner and outer perimeter and called in the hostage negotiation team.
After eight hours of negotiations, the suspect finally surrendered and was taken to Kings County Hospital for a psych evaluation, cops said.
The arrested man was identified by police and the District Attorney’s office as David Shields, 30. The gun and the knife were recovered as evidence, cops said.
