With one week to go before retirement, Brian Menton, Detective for the Yonkers Police Department, was shot as he and other task force officers conducted an operation to get illegal guns off the streets.
Reports on Thursday confirmed that Det. Menton was awake and interacting with others after going through surgery for the damage done internally from the gunshot wound.
Detective Menton was praised by the Commissioner who said that he was responsible for “hundreds” of gun arrests in his 27 years working for the police. The Commissioner said that the city would see a lot more shootings if it were not for the efforts made by law enforcement to get the illegal guns off the streets.
28-year-old Bryant Jackson shot Detective Menton but was shot in the head by an FBI agent who returned fire.
According to the Rockland/Westchester Journal News:
Two other men with Jackson were arrested Wednesday. On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York charged both men, Bryce Martin, 23, and Xavier Simms, 22, of Georgia, each with one count of conspiring to traffic firearms, which could land them in prison for up to five years. Jackson, who the U.S. Attorney’s Office labeled as a third co-conspirator, was also from Georgia.
The Yonkers Police Commissioner, John Mueller, narrated the video in hopes that it would calm all “lingering doubt” about the events that took place shortly after 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
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In the video, the narration of the event starts at the 3:50 mark.
“What you’re seeing from this vantage point, you’re seeing what’s going on inside as our officers, our safe streets task force are converging on the Bodega, and most of the folks that were outside in front of the Bodega, and if you understand Oakland, Elm, and Linden, they’re there quite a bit, and then they go into the Bodega.
So just to paint the picture, this is right before the officers get out of their vehicles and converge on the corner.
4:21
So, this is the shooter, which is 28-year-old Bryant Jackson. We can release his name, he is deceased, and I want you to focus on the chain. Because the chain is connected to the gun there, which was gun number one. So he had the chain attatched to his belt loop and the gun is in his pocket where you see his hands. So, does everybody see that?
4:49
At this point it appears from what you can see, he’s showing the individual in the black hood the gun and he calls over the individual in the gray hood – the gun – to show it to them, and at this point they don’t that the officers are coming. He puts it, you can see him put it back in his sweatshirt and you can see how the pocket hangs a little bit low. He’s putting it back in the sweatshirt. The pocket hangs low, so it’s heavy, and this is where they see that the officers are coming in. He goes out and you can see him look through the window knowing the officers are coming.
5:21
So at this point, the officers come in. It’s important to note that none of the officers had their guns drawn at this point. The first detective comes in, and the second detective. Now the second detective is our officer who was shot. That’s a 27-year-veteran, Detective Brian Menton, a member of the Safe Streets Task Force, an unbelievable, tremendous detective. Yes, he’s retiring in a week, but it’s important to note that he didn’t stop doing his job until the very end, doing what he did.
5:57
So he comes in. Now, Mr. Jackson attempts to walk out and you can see that Brian tries to keep him, Detective Menton tries to keep him in the store by putting his hand in. At this point he (Jackson) pulls back, and you can see him grab the gun from inside of his shirt and he’s already shot Detective Menton. This is where the Detective Menton falls down.
6:27
Now what we did was, what we think is the gun, after the gun discharged, it stove piped because it got caught on the cloth of the inside of the sweatshirt. Now that’s speculation, but that’s what we think happened and thank God it did jam, because you have after Detective Menton was on the ground you have the other detective, and we’re not going to disclose any other officer’s names or detective’s names or agent’s names. He didn’t have his gun out and thankfully the gun didn’t go again. At this point Detective Menton is shot, he’s on the floor, and this is where you can see the FBI agent come in with his weapon drawn in response to this shot.