Brooklyn Burglary Suspect Remains At Large After Alleged Accomplice Fatally Shot By Police
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The hunt continued Tuesday for a burglary suspect after his alleged accomplice was shot dead by police in Brooklyn.
It all began when police responded to a burglary in progress around 6:30 p.m. Monday at a three-story home at 78th Street just off Stillwell Avenue in Bensonhurst.
When officers arrived, they saw one of the suspects climbing out a window and down a fire escape into the backyard, police said.
As CBS2's Hazel Sanchez reported, Bensonhurst resident Shao Jin was walking with her husband outside their home when she saw police running after the gunman.
"She felt that her heart was about to explode, she was so scared, because the guy was holding a gun. Then she hears a gunshot," an interpreter said for Jin.
Police said the two suspects had held up a family of eight – seven adults and an infant – at gunpoint in the home where police spotted them.
One of the victims ran out of the house, telling Jin that the suspects had shown up at their front door posing as construction workers.
"When they opened the door, that's when they entered the house and told everyone to lay down on the floor, take everything out of pocket -- cellphone included," Jin's interpreter said. "The guy who got shot, she said he was in the bedroom taking everything out of the drawer; just ransacking the place."
It was someone inside the home who managed to call 911.
When they arrived, police came face to face with suspect Orville Edwards, 39, who allegedly escaped the home by pushing out a third-floor air conditioning unit before he ran down the fire escape. He went on to scale a fence onto Stillwell Avenue, where he was confronted by an NYPD sergeant, police said.
"It was close," NYPD Chief of Department James O'Neill said. "As the suspect came over the wall, the sergeant was right there so he had to actually push his arm away. He was close, real close."
That's when O'Neill said the suspect pulled out a revolver and pointed it at the sergeant.
"The suspect pointed a revolver at the sergeant. Both the sergeant and another uniformed police officer discharged their service weapons," O'Neill said. "The male subject was struck twice."
Police tried to resuscitate the suspect on the ground, but he was pronounced dead at an area hospital.
Police said the second suspect fled just before officers arrived at the home. They describe him as a heavy-set black man in his 30s who was last seen wearing a yellow hard hat and a construction vest.
Word of the break-in and subsequent police-involved shooting spread through the neighborhood and left many residents on edge.
"The family was home with a little newborn baby," neighbor Malvina Mesionzhnik told CBS2's Magdalena Doris. "It's so scary."
"That's the scary part. You always hope there's no other aspect to it, that it was almost a random crime," said neighbor Dan Bursic..
No one inside the house that was burglarized was injured in the incident.
