January 10, 2026 The streets of New York City turned into a war zone Thursday night as two separate, deadly police shootings erupted just hours apart. From the upscale blocks of the West Village to the corridors of a Brooklyn hospital, the sound of gunfire replaced the usual city hum, leaving two men dead and neighborhoods in shock.

Terror in the West Village: "Drop the Gun!"

At approximately 10:53 p.m., the historic intersection of Bedford Street and 6th Avenue became a scene of absolute mayhem. It began with a hit-and-run—a white BMW colliding with a Dodge—but it ended in a hail of bullets.

When officers from the 6th Precinct approached the BMW, the 37-year-old driver didn't surrender. Instead, he jumped from the vehicle and leveled what looked like a handgun directly at the officers.

"There was a crazy number of gunshots," said Klein Babar, an Uber driver caught in the crossfire. "I smelled gunpowder... the cops neutralized him."

Witnesses described a harrowing scene as officers desperately pleaded with the man, screaming, "Drop the gun!" and "We want to help you!" even as he lay wounded on the pavement. The man was rushed to Bellevue Hospital but was pronounced dead. In a tragic twist, investigators later revealed the weapon was an air pistol—a realistic imitation that cost him his life.

Eyewitness Accounts: "Pop, Pop, Pop"

• Allie, a local resident: "I thought it was fireworks... then I heard a lot of sirens. They all converged in this area, super fast."

• Unnamed Witness: "I saw two cops pointing their weapons... there were about 20 gunshots."

Bloodshed in Brooklyn: The Hospital Hostage Crisis

In a story brought to you earlier, hours before the West Village erupted, a separate tragedy unfolded at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

A man in the throes of a mental health crisis reportedly fashioned a "shiv" out of a piece of a toilet. After beginning to self-harm, the situation escalated into a nightmare when he allegedly took a hospital staff member hostage. When the man charged at responding officers with the makeshift weapon, police opened fire.

He did not survive.

A City Under Investigation

Both shootings are currently under intense scrutiny by the NYPD Force Investigation Division. As the city wakes up to the news of two fatal police encounters in a single evening, questions are being raised about the surge of violent confrontations and the split-second decisions that leave families grieving and streets cordoned off by yellow tape.