Sanders Endorses Clinton, Says 'She Must Become Our Next President'
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- 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.
Bernie Sanders at last endorsed Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president on Tuesday.
But as CBS2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reported, questions remained about whether Sanders' supporters would follow him.
The Vermont senator stood side-by-side with Clinton in Portsmouth, New Hampshire during a rally Tuesday. It was the first time the two shared a stage where they weren't trying to outmatch each other in a debate, CBS2's Kramer reported.
PHOTOS: Sanders Endorses Clinton For President
"Secretary Clinton has won the democratic nominating process and I congratulate her for that," Sanders said.
He pledged that his "political revolution'' would continue, but he acknowledged that she, and not he, had won the delegates to snag the nomination. That has been true for weeks, and Democrats have not-so-quietly been angling for him to drop out and endorse the former secretary of state.
COMPLETE CAMPAIGN 2016 COVERAGE
Sanders promised to work to help Clinton win in November, calling her "far and away the best candidate'' to confront challenges facing the country.
Clinton was grateful for the support.
"I can't help but reflect how much more enjoyable this election is going to be now that we are on the same side," Clinton said.
The endorsement, which comes less than two weeks before the Democratic National Convention, came with a price. Policy changes that forced Clinton to move more to the left at a time when most candidates are trying to appear more centrist, Kramer reported.
"I am happy to tell you that at the Democratic Platform Committee, there was a significant coming together between the two campaigns, and we produced," Sanders said.
Sanders won concessions in the democratic platform which vows for the first time to abolish the death penalty and embrace a $15 minimum wage, instead of the $12 Clinton long argued was more realistic.
The big question is whether Sanders' enthusiastic supporters will follow their leader. Recent polling suggests that 85 percent of Sanders' supporters have said they plan to back Clinton.
Sanders beat Clinton in New Hampshire by a dominant 22-point margin last February. Many of his supporters have shifted to Clinton but the senator is hoping to rally them as a way of preventing presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump from reaching the White House.
Ahead of the endorsement, Trump said Sanders "has totally sold out to Crooked Hillary Clinton" and that fans are angry.
For weeks, Trump has been trying to woo Sanders backers frustrated with Washington politics by stressing his outsider candidacy.
A new poll shows Clintons' lead shrinking to three points -- 47 to 44 -- after the FBI's decision about her use of a private email server.
Trump will be spending the night in Indiana where he'll be accompanied at two stops by Gov. Mike Pence, who has been mentioned as a possible GOP vice presidential candidate. Trump is expected to announce his running mate before the Republican National Convention on Sunday.
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