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A Man Died After the NYPD Tasered Him

According to police, the man threatened officers with a glass bottle when they confronted him.
​ NYPD photo via Flickr user Billie Grace Ward

A 49-year-old man died after NYPD officers shot him twice with a Taser during an altercation Wednesday evening, the New York Daily Newsreports.

Police responded to a call around 5:30 PM describing someone "acting violently" and armed with a knife in the Bronx neighborhood of Pelham Bay. According to the NYPD, the man threatened the officers with a glass bottle when they confronted him at a basement apartment.

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The four officers reportedly shot the man multiple times with a Taser. And although no official autopsy has been reported—and thus no official cause of death known—this would mark the second time in recent weeks that the NYPD killed someone showing signs of mental illness in the Bronx, according to the New York Times.

Family members say the man who died Wednesday had a learning disability, the Daily News reports.

Police performed CPR at the scene Wednesday and transported the man to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead after apparently suffering cardiac arrest.

"He's not an aggressive guy at all," the man's upstairs neighbor told the Daily News. "He was real good with my son. My son called him 'Big Buddy.'"

Read: There's No Such Thing as a 'Non-Lethal' Weapon