Early yesterday morning, a Bronx man was shot 10 times by police when he refused to drop his realistic-looking pellet gun after a fight broke out outside a nightclub. Incredibly, none of the bullets hit any of Mamadou Balde's vital organs, and he is in critical but stable condition at Lincoln Hospital. Friends call Balde a "wannabe Blood," his family calls him a "gang member wannabe," but the gentlemen and good ladies at the Post just call him a "gangsta idiot."
Balde was partying at the Cocoa House in Highbridge section of the Bronx when a fight spilled out of the club and into the streets just before 3 a.m. Friday morning. Nearly one hundred people were in the street; witnesses said that one man was using a tree branch as a weapon, another man used a rock, and Balde was carrying the pellet gun, which police called a “very convincing” imitation Beretta handgun made of black metal. When cops arrived, Balde reportedly aimed the weapon at the crowd; according to police spokesman Paul Browne, “He pointed it at them and refused direct orders to drop it.” When he refused they shot 18 times from about 15 feet away, connecting on 10 of those. He was hit by bullets in the torso, legs, buttocks and left elbow. "He's in a coma. He didn't wake up. They shot him everywhere, the leg, the front, the back. Everywhere. Even the toe," Balde's mother, Biariatou, told the Post.
But relatives of Balde refute the police account of the events: his sister Marliatou Balde, who was there too, said her brother did not have any type of gun, fake or otherwise. “Someone said someone had a gun, and the cops started shooting. My brother sometimes puts his hand in his shirt, so they assumed he had a gun.” However, police say that his pellet gun was recovered from the scene. This is the second time Balde, who has two prior arrests, has been involved in a shooting-related incident: in 2007, he was shot during a dispute sparked by flashing gang signs.
