Family and friends remember Brooklyn father shot and killed by NYPD

Family, friends, pastors and activists gathered on Monday night outside a Brooklyn deli where police shot and killed 33-year-old Christian Emile the day before.

About a hundred people inscribed balloons with personal messages and released them into the sky as prayer candles and old photos lined the sidewalk below. Emile’s daughter scurried around the street in East Flatbush, holding up five fingers. She had celebrated her fifth birthday on the same night her father would end up dead.

“It was one of the last hours we spent with him,” said Juliet Edwards, Emile’s great-grandmother.

An NYPD official said two police officers and a sergeant with the department’s Community Response Team were on patrol at around 1 a.m. Sunday when they saw Emile pointing a gun at someone at the corner of East 52nd Street and Church Avenue.

NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said at a press conference later that day that Emile ran from police as officers yelled at him to drop the gun. Police then used a Taser on Emile, momentarily stunning him before he kept running with the gun, according to Maddrey.

The officers then shot Emile six times in the head, torso and thigh, according to the city's medical examiner.

The state attorney general's office is investigating, as it does with all fatal police shootings.

Shortly after, another man came into the local hospital with a graze wound to the leg, claiming to be in the vicinity of the shooting, the NYPD said in a statement to Gothamist. Tayar Alzuvidi, the co-owner of the deli where Emile was shot, said one of his employees — a woman — was grazed by a bullet that night. The NYPD did not respond to an inquiry about whether two people could have been grazed by police bullets that night.

At around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, Gladimar Simeon was working on a podcast in his apartment when he heard gunfire on the street. Simeon filmed the intense scene where about 15 police officers formed a wall facing Emile’s family and friends as they begged for information about what happened. A woman is heard wailing in the background.

Simeon said he’s grown used to shootings in the neighborhood, and this time he thought someone he knew had been shot. There were at least 28 shootings within a mile of the deli last year, according to a gun violence map made by the nonprofit newsroom The Trace. At least 10 of those shootings were fatal, the map shows.

“At this point, a lot of us are desensitized to the violence,” Simeon said. “I don't think someone getting shot should feel normal.”

Remnants of the shooting speckled Church Avenue on Monday morning. Shattered glass lined the block and handfuls of police tape were strewn about the street. A construction crew was repairing destroyed glass doors and windows at Alzuvidi’s deli. His family lives above the shop and inspected two more bullet holes that pierced their apartment door. The NYPD did not say how many times the officers fired their guns.

James Ogle, who runs the neighboring karate studio, said he had to pay $520 to replace a door that was destroyed by two bullets that night.

“By next week we’re all gonna forget this,” he said. “Because something else is going to happen.”

Andrew Graham, who said he was Emile's lifelong friend, said he will not soon forget. Graham said he, Emile and a group of friends were headed to a bar on the corner of East 52nd Street and Church Avenue Saturday night after Emile’s daughter’s birthday party. Graham said he went home for a few minutes to change when he got the call about Emile’s death.

“I didn’t wanna believe it,” he said. “I came straight here.”

Several of Emile’s kids and his brother Delante spoke through tears on Monday night. “I love you, daddy,” his young daughter said into a microphone, sending murmurs through the crowd.

Carol Gray leaned against a parked car wiping tears from her face, looking down at prayer candles spelling out “Flee,” Emile’s nickname. Eleven years ago, police shot and killed her 16-year-old son Kimani Gray one block away.

“We can’t keep repeating this,” she said.