An incident on the Brooklyn Bridge in the early hours of Friday morning ended tragically, when a man who was on the bridge’s cables and appeared to be having a mental health crisis was shot by police officers and succumbed to his injuries. Authorities reported that he was wielding a knife, threatened that he had a bomb, and moved toward a police officer despite repeated orders to put it down.

The incident began around dawn, when police received reports of a man who had climbed onto the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.

Officers from the 84th Precinct and members of the Emergency Services Unit (Emergency Services Unit – ESU), who located the man walking on the bridge’s cables.

ESU members climbed onto the cables and spent nearly an hour trying to communicate with him and persuade him to come down safely.

The unit’s commander, Jerry Dowling, explained that the officers had to secure themselves to the bridge with special clips for safety reasons, a fact which, as he noted, “drastically limits the speed of their movements.”

An apparently emotionally disturbed man was fatally shot by the NYPD on the Brooklyn Bridge early Friday after brandishing a knife at an officer and demanding that the police kill him. Brian Shlonsky reports. More: https://t.co/2uVfun3XES https://t.co/cQflKs8pHH pic.twitter.com/7d2IFNB1Yn

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) September 5, 2026

According to police, ESU officers could see that the 41-year-old was holding a knife.

During the negotiation attempt, the man reportedly told the officers: “I want to die. I want you to kill me. I have a bomb. You’re not going to make me do anything bad to the police officers.”

The police officers repeatedly gave him verbal commands to drop the knife, but he did not comply.

According to Dowling, at one point the man began rapidly descending along the same cable where the police officers were standing.

“The officers began moving backward, away from the man, but they couldn’t move as fast as he was approaching them,” he said.

When the man reached a distance of about one meter from the nearest ESU officer and raised his arm with the knife pointed at the officer, another officer from the special unit who was on the bridge deck fired a single shot, wounding him.

Dramatic new video shows officers confronting a man with a knife hundreds of feet up on a cable of New York’s iconic Brooklyn Bridge. @MattRiversABC reports. https://t.co/WivgGaLfF5 pic.twitter.com/oD5whZmhKm

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) September 4, 2026

The officers attempted to administer first aid, but the man was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A knife and a flashlight were found at the scene.

Authorities later identified the man as 41-year-old Tsong Bottom, a resident of the Bronx.

According to the police, he had no prior arrests, and there was no recorded history of mental health issues in police records.

Source: Proto Thema