Brooklyn, N.Y. - Cops kill man waiving toy gun

A cop responding to frantic 911 calls Monday shot and killed the son of a retired New York State lawman who witnesses said was waving an imitation pistol outside a Brooklyn school.

Some students were still milling around Public School 194 a half-hour after dismissal, when parents and residents said they saw the man brandishing the silver-and-black toy gun.

George D'Amato, 22, pointed the gun at the officer outside the Sheepshead Bay school and refused orders to drop it, police sources said. "[The officer] fired three times," one of the sources told the Daily News.

Maureen Quinn, who lives nearby, said she ran out of her house and "saw a body laying down on [Knapp] St."

"I heard a cop tell another, 'He pulled a gun on me,'" she said. "He was not moving. It was scary," Quinn said.

"It's a shame," said another nearby resident, Joe Vigilant, 51.

"It really is. He looked young, too," he said of D'Amato.

D'Amato is the son of George D'Amato Sr., a 62-year-old retired senior criminal investigator with the state tax department.

The elder D'Amato and his wife, Maria, were heartbroken and neighbors were baffled by the shooting.

"They [cops] thought it was a good idea to shoot several bullets outside a school around children!" shouted the 56-year-old mom, a Brooklyn courts worker, outside their Gerritsen Beach home last night.

"They cut a life too short for not thinking outside the box," Maria D'Amato added.

"He was kindhearted," the distraught dad said. "He was a good kid. He was waiting for a job."

Family friend Janice Torres, 22, said the D'Amatos have no idea how their son ended up in the deadly faceoff.

"His parents have served in the justice system," Torres said. "He did not deserve this."

D'Amato was taken to Coney Island Hospital, where he died at 4:11 p.m., about an hour after the shooting, police said.

Kerima Amer, who had just picked up her two daughters at the school at the time of the shooting, said there were kids in a fenced-in patio area just up the block.

"I can't imagine if it had happened two minutes earlier," she said.

Police sources said the shots were fired by an officer who has been on the force less than two years. He arrived before other cops from the 61st Precinct did.

While top brass did not comment last night, police sources were adamant the officer reacted properly.

"The guy's menacing people, waving the gun around. The cop tells him to drop the gun. He wouldn't drop it," said one.

"It was a very realistic-looking gun," said another police source.

The younger D'Amato had one previous arrest, on Feb. 27, for criminal mischief and possession of burglar's tools, cops said.

The police also received reports D'Amato had menaced kids earlier Monday with the fake weapon outside a housing complex and Little League field.

Daily News