NEW YORK (AP) – A man was shot in the head by police on the steps of a New York City cathedral Sunday afternoon.
New York Police Commissioner Dermat Shea said a detective, a sergeant and an officer fired 15 rounds after the man opened fire on St. John the Divine Cathedral, the mother church of the New York Episcopal Diocese, just before 4 p.m.
“By the grace of God today,” Shia said, adding that no one was attacked except the gunman.
Witnesses told police the man was shouting “Kill me” when he opened fire. The person’s name has been withheld because a positive identity is pending.
The man had a long criminal history and carried a bag containing gasoline, rope, wire, ribbon, knives and a well-worn Bible, Shia said. The police commissioner called the officers’ actions “heroic.”
The 45-minute concert is now over and people are starting to walk away when they hear a series of scenes, with people screaming and diving down the sidewalk running down Amsterdam Avenue.
The gunman was dressed in black and his face was covered with a white baseball cap and mask. He had a silver pistol in one hand and a black one in the other as he descended from behind a stone column at the top of the stairs.
Before the shooting began, members of the cathedral choir were standing at a distance on stone steps masked by a coronavirus infection.
“It was so beautiful, and then this person started shooting. Everyone was in shock,” Cathedral spokeswoman Lisa Schubert told The New York Times.
It is not clear whether the gunman was targeting people or firing in the air.
“This afternoon, when New York City needed our singer’s gift, song and solidarity, was reduced by this shocking act of violence,” Cathedral spokeswoman Eva Benson said in an email.
The cathedral is one of the largest in the world. Construction began in 1892 and is not yet complete. The church is associated with many New York lights and significant events in its long history. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a trustee. It provided memorial services for speakers including puppet Jim Henson and choreographer Alvin Ailey and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
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Andhra writer Michael R. Sisak reported from New York.