Man Who Threatened To Blow Up World In 911 Phone Call Shot Dead By Cops

A Queens man, who threatened to “blow up” the world, was shot and killed by New York Police Department (NYPD) officers Saturday evening.

Shortly after 6 p.m., police arrived at 205-17 116th Avenue in Cambria Heights. The NYPD received multiple threatening 911 calls from the 60-year-old man, Raul Hardy, reported Daily Star. He said that he would “change the government” by assassinating New York Governor Kathy Hochul and the “PD Chief," reported New York Post. According to police and law enforcement sources, he also threatened to “blow up” the world.

NYPD Chief of Patrol Jeffrey Maddrey said that Hardy clearly stated that "he was going to blow the head off of the first police officers that he saw," and later he made another 911 call and "he basically reiterated the same thing.” Maddrey shared that a large group of cops responded to the call, parked down the street and walked to Hardy’s house. They had guns drawn. According to officials, Hardy came out from the house, answered police by name and refused to show his hands. He refused to cooperate with their instructions. Then he opened fire at the cops, prompting six officers to fire back.

Maddrey said that there was a high volume of rounds fired that night probably "north of 100." According to Maddrey, after shooting down Hardy, police tried to perform CPR, but the suspect was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Hardy's neighbors said that he had increasingly become erratic since his mother died, according to New York Post. One local said that he was okay until three years ago when his mother passed away, and now he’s "saying the same s**t, crazy s**t, yelling. We hearing it every day now."

Another neighbor, a 38-year-old woman, called the shooting “heartbreaking," and said that his "erratic behavior was becoming more frequent." She said that she was worried for him, but didn’t know who to reach out to as she doesn’t know his family. She shared that initially, he seemed like a pleasant person, but he didn’t go to work, and he just "hung out in the back of his garage." She said that lately he was having episodes where he would start cursing and talking to himself, so she felt that he was "definitely suffering from mental illness.”