Police shot and killed a man in Manhattan’s Chinatown Thursday after a two and a half hour standoff that ended when he fired at officers who had entered his apartment, NYPD officials said.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny identified the man as Kent Edwards, 43. Kenny said officers had gone to the apartment at 206 Eldridge St. to arrest Edwards, who they said was a suspect in an Upper East Side shooting, a strangulation in Queens and a sexual abuse case. They said he also had an active bench warrant for failing to register as a sex offender.
Edwards, who state prison records show is Black, served 12 years in prison for attempted rape and selling drugs starting in October 2000. Police officials said Thursday that Edwards’ mental state was under investigation.
Attempts to reach Edwards’ relatives were unsuccessful.
Kenny said the Manhattan Violent Felony Squad tracked Edwards down at about 11:45 a.m. on Thursday morning at a small public housing unit in Lower Manhattan. Kenny said they found him by monitoring his phone, credit card and physically surveilling him. Edwards used to live in the Bronx but was “couch surfing,” Kenny added.
The officers knocked on the apartment door, where two women answered and said Edwards was locked in the bathroom with a 9mm gun, police officials said at a news conference. Police are investigating Edwards’ relationship with the two women, officials said.
The warrant officers then called in the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit, who spent two and a half hours in the building hallway using police technology to get Edwards to leave the apartment, police said.
First, the ESU – a specialized bureau deployed in highly-sensitive emergencies – sent in “scout,” a small police robot, which Edwards “immobilized” with a blanket, NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said.
Then, officers flew in a police drone through the apartment’s bedroom window, according to NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard….
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