JOSH RANNEY
News Editor
A normally quiet street in Fredonia was the site of a large police presence Monday afternoon.
Authorities were dispatched to a residence on Liberty Street in Fredonia around 2 o’clock Monday afternoon for reports of a man with a knife.
A responding Village of Fredonia police officer found a man covered in blood from self-inflicted wounds barricaded in a room with a knife.
After commands by the officer to drop the knife, the man, whose name has yet to be released, charged at the officer.
According to reports from WKBW-TV, an attorney for the officer said the knife-wielding man chased the officer outside the house where the officer shot the man in the driveway.
The man died at the scene.
The officer’s lawyer, Thomas Burton, said the officer had no other option at that point.
“There were multiple witnesses to this man’s bizarre behavior,” Burton told the Buffalo News. “It is certainly abhorrent behavior to chase a cop at knifepoint out of a house and onto a driveway and then ignore commands from a uniformed officer to stop what you’re doing. At that point, the officer could retreat no further.”
Liberty Street resident, Ryan Wysong, described to reporters what he experienced from his home a few doors down.
“It started as a normal day in the neighborhood, then all of a sudden, boom boom,” said Wysong.
“I just heard these distinct noises, and I started to move to the front of my house and that’s when I heard two gunshots then a few seconds later I heard another two.”
Wysong said that after that, he saw the police presence go from a couple officers to multiple agencies.
“At that time I saw there was a small fire truck, local officers, then within a minute or two, state troopers, Fredonia police, Dunkirk police, university campus police from SUNY Fredonia…”
Wysong said the intense police activity is uncommon for the neighborhood.
“It’s a tight knit community,” he said. “It’s really quiet, nothing really out of the blue normally. There’s drug issues in the area but nothing crazy.”
Wysong also told reporters that despite his neighborhood that sits about a mile from Fredonia’s campus being tight knit, he does not know who lives in the house that was involved in the shooting.
Wysong, a student at Alfred State, but resident of Fredonia said he was writing a paper for school when he heard the gunshots.
“It proceeded to be a chaotic scene,” he said. “The police started piling down the road and they quickly blocked off the road and wouldn’t let anyone through.”
Hours after the incident, a hearse arrived at the house to collect the body. The Chautauqua County District attorney and the New York State Attorney General’s office were also on the scene investigating.
Be sure to stay up to date on this story on our website at fredonialeader.org and on Twitter @LeaderFredonia