Another New York Police Shooting Sets Off Protests

The fatal shooting by New York City police of a man alleged to have hit a sergeant with a hammer brought a fresh round of criticism Tuesday for a department already accused of brutality in several cases.

Police responding to a complaint at a Brooklyn apartment fired about a dozen bullets Monday night at 31-year-old Gideon Basch, striking him in the torso several times and killing him.

The case brought recollections of the February shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who died in a hail of 41 police bullets in the hallway of his Bronx apartment building.

Police said Basch, who was alleged to have hit a man in the face with a hammer on Sunday, had been swinging a hammer threateningly on Monday when they were called twice to his apartment in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn.

After the first call to police by a neighbor, Basch appeared to calm down and the officers left. But police were called a second time and found Basch agitated and again wielding a hammer.

After trying to subdue him with tear gas, police said, officers opened fire after Basch struck a sergeant several times in the arm with the hammer. They said four of the six officers at the scene opened fire.

The shooting drew hundreds of people from the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood into the streets to protest what they called excessive force and to demand an investigation.

A Police Department spokesman said the department was conducting a standard investigation, as it would whenever police shoot a suspect. He would not elaborate.