Police hit nine bystanders in NY shootout

New York authorities have confirmed that all nine bystanders caught in the crossfire of a shooting outside the Empire State Building were wounded by two police officers who had never fired their weapons on duty before.

Officer Craig Matthews fired seven times and Officer Robert Sinishtaj fired nine times at Jeffrey Johnson on a busy Friday morning after Johnson shot a former co-worker to death and then pointed his pistol at them.

Police had said nine bystanders were thought to have been wounded by stray or ricocheting police bullets, and police commissioner Raymond Kelly confirmed that today.

He says that based on ballistic tests and other evidence, “it appears that all nine of the victims were struck either by fragments or by bullets fired by police”.