Protesters chanted "the whole world is watching."
Four officers unleashed 10 rounds at Vassell on Wednesday afternoon. His crime? Holding a metal pipe up and pretending to point it at a police car as if it was a gun — but no firearm was found when officers approached his lifeless body.
"Why shoot to kill? Are you so afraid that you have to take his life," Eric Vassell, the victim's father, asked NY Daily News.
"They just hopped out of the car. It's almost like they did a hit. They didn't say ‘please.' They didn't say ‘Put your hands up,' nothing," witness Jaccbot Hinds told the New York Daily News on Thursday.
Vassell, a bipolar man, was a caring father, according to his 15-year-old son.