Photo: New York Police Department
A man with a "machete-type sword" was shot and killed by New York City police early Tuesday morning, authorities said.
The 69-year-old man was shot in a Bronx apartment on the third floor at around 4 a.m.
Officers went into a rear bedroom where the elderly man confronted them with a knife with 2-foot long blade. When he repeatedly refused to drop the weapon, police shot him once in the chest, according to NYPD Chief of Patrol Terence Monahan. Monahan also said that officers were executing a search warrant after receiving reports of handguns and drugs inside the apartment.
"This was information we received about guns and drugs in that apartment," Monahan told CBS News. "That's why we went down to court and got a search warrant to search that premises. Upon entering the apartment, two members of the team went to a rear bedroom where they were confronted by a male brandishing a machete-type sword with a two-foot blade."
The man was identified later as Mario Sanabria. He died at a local hospital. Monahan said the deceased man was not the person police were originally looking for when they entered the apartment.
There was one other occupant of the apartment, another elderly man, who was not hurt by the officers but was also taken to the hospital for observation.
There has not been any information reported about the condition of the second man.