New York (AP) -- The Fire Department of New York has cautioned firefighters against surprising armed police officers in the stairwells of public housing projects, saying in a memo they should loudly announce their presence.
The memo was prompted by a March 15 incident in which two police officers pointed their pistols at two firefighters who entered a Brooklyn rooftop from a stairwell to help free a stuck elevator.
The police holstered their weapons when they realized the two other people were firefighters, according to the memo.
In January, a Brooklyn housing police officer shot and killed an unarmed teenager who opened a door from a stairwell to the rooftop of his housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
A grand jury declined to indict Officer Richard Neri after he testified that he shot 19-year-old Timothy Stansbury unintentionally when he was startled by the teen’s opening the stairwell door.
The police department had no comment on the FDNY memo.