Christopher Rice, the 19-year-old who was shot four times by police early on Saturday morning, was released from the hospital and arraigned yesterday. He pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, weapons possession, menacing, and ammunition possession and is being held on $150,000 bail. Conspicuously absent from the charges was the assaulting an officer charge that police had initially brought after arresting him.
The police account of the events that led to Rice and Officer Sherrod Stuart suffering gunshot wounds has shifted substantially since what sounds like a chaotic morning in Mott Haven. Stuart was one of several officers responding to 911 calls about a fight in the street on Third Avenue involving dozens of people, some armed with bats, knives and guns.
At 8 that morning, police described the series of events this way:
As the officers arrived at the scene, they encountered a male subject and pursued him. As backup units arrived the officers engaged in a gunfight during which Police Officer Stuart was struck in the right foot. He returned gunfire, striking the male suspect four times. A 380 semi-automatic firearm was recovered at the scene. Three additional firearms were recovered in a subsequent search of the area around 137th Street and 3rd Avenue where the initial 911 calls came in.
In the initial account, officials left open the possibility that Stuart had been hit by friendly fire by making the sentence passive, saying simply that he "was struck." But they left no doubt about the accusation that Rice had fired at officers, using the term "gunfight," and saying that Stuart "returned gunfire." On Monday, after extracting a 9 millimeter bullet from Stuart's ankle, police determined that Stuart had in fact been shot by a colleague, but officials maintained that Rice had caused a shootout and said the assault charge would likely stick.
In a criminal complaint submitted by prosecutors, where the rubber meets the road charging-wise, the charge did not stick. In the new official version of what happened, an officer named Saul Quiles-Morales says he "observed a crowd of people at" 188 Lincoln Avenue, across the street from the party hall where the fight was first reported, and "observed [Rice] holding a silver firearm." Quiles-Morales then "observed [Rice] fire said firearm at least one time in the direction of a crowd of people." Video surveillance subsequently showed two shots into the crowd, according to the complaint.
Quiles-Morales says he told Rice, "Police, put your gun down," at which point Rice "[turned] around and [pointed] said firearm" at him. The complaint omits the reported 19 rounds three cops let off at Rice, saying only that Quiles-Morales recovered a .380 handgun from beneath Rice, loaded with five rounds.
To be clear, pointing a gun at a police officer is likely to get you shot whether or not you pull the trigger, and Rice is still in a heap of trouble. Attempted second-degree murder alone can carry as many as 25 years in prison. But the most recent police account is a far cry from the picture of a shootout with the cops that the NYPD first painted.
