Rocco Parascandola and John Annese
New York Daily News
BROOKLYN, NY — An NYPD officer who was smashed in the head with a chair in a wild Brooklyn nail salon melee emerged from his medically-induced coma, police sources said Sunday.
Officer Lesly Lafontant, 53, was taken off a respirator and is breathing on his own, sources said. He remained in Brookdale University Medical Center Sunday.
Lafontant was hurt in an chaotic encounter Friday night that ended with the officer fatally shooting his attacker.
The melee unfolded at the Goldmine Nail Salon on Mother Gaston Blvd. near Sutter Ave. in Brownsville, where Dewayne Hawkes, 26, asked a worker to use the bathroom. When the employee refused, Hawkes walked into the salon’s kitchen, locked the door behind him and relieved himself on the floor, police said.
Other workers flagged down police, and as officers tried to arrest Hawkes, T-shirt vendor Kwesi Ashun, 33, came into the store and slammed a metal chair into Lafontant’s head, cops said. Lafontant fired six times, killing Ashun.
Ashun’s relatives say he was bipolar, and they sought help for him, but a crisis team from Kings County Hospital told them just days before the melee they couldn’t help him, his sister told The News.
Ashun was accused in Oct. 2004 of using a knife to slice Officer James Sinnott’s face from ear to neck. Another officer, Brian Risano, was injured as he and other officers tried to subdue the then 18-year-old Ashun.
In that case, Ashun was subdued and admitted to Kings County Hospital as an “emotionally disturbed person,” according to a Daily News report of the incident. The resolution of the criminal case against him has since been sealed.
Hawkes, who was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing, was freed without bail at arraignment Saturday on the condition that he participate in a supervised release program.