10 Officers Shoot & Kill Knife-Wielding Man In Hyattsville; Twitter Reacts

A Hyattsville man was shot dead Thursday after police say the man charged at officers with knives.

According to officials, a call came in around 7:15 a.m. from a local coffee shop in Hyattsville, Maryland, about an armed individual, identified later as 49-year-old Leonard Shand.

10 officers from three local law enforcement agencies arrived on the scene and reportedly tried to detain Shand and deescalate the situation by using tasers, pepper spray, a flash-bang grenade and a gun that fired beanbags but still could not subdue him, according to reports. The standoff went on for almost 30 minutes.

Hyattsville Police Chief Amal Awad claims the suspect had been armed with two knives and was making threatening comments to police at the scene about how he was going to harm them. When he charged towards the officers, all 10 officers on the scene opened fire, striking the suspect multiple times and killing him.

An onlooker inside of a nearby building even had a close encounter with one of the bullets. A video posted by the woman on Twitter apparently captured her recording the incident then seconds later a bullet came flying through the window. She later tweeted that a bullet missed her head by 10 inches.

Some people are outraged that 10 officers couldn’t take down a man with knives. One user on Twitter wrote, “Eyewitness thread of #Hyattsville police shooting a man with a knife. Cops are in fucking body armor, and there’s a dozen of them, but these chickenshits can’t handle one dude with a knife. Fire them all, Amal. #BlackLivesMatter.” 

While on the other hand, another user wrote “That’s why I wish y’all would STFU about the guy who got shot in Hyattsville. He CLEARLY had knives in his hand. They had already used non-lethal force that did not stop him, and he charged at them saying “shoot me”( with the knives still in his hand).”

According to reports, the same man had allegedly used a metal pole to strike an employee in the head days before his passing.