N.C. cops shoot man as he sets fire to cars, charges officer with Molotov cocktail – New York Daily News

Cops outside Raleigh, N.C., fatally shot a man who was setting cars ablaze, after they told him to stop and he charged them with a Molotov cocktail.

The incident began at about 1:20 p.m. Saturday after a man was seen lighting vehicles on fire in a parking lot near the department’s southeast district station in Raleigh, Police Chief Estella Patterson said at a news conference cited by The Associated Press.

The cop who spotted the man, who police did not immediately identify, summoned other officers and was joined by three of them. They ordered the man to stop, but he kept tossing Molotov cocktails, one of which he lobbed toward an officer standing nearby.

“The individual continued to throw multiple Molotov cocktails in the parking lot and eventually towards our officers who were there and eventually did throw one to officers who were in close proximity to him,” Patterson told WRAL-TV. “Multiple officers then discharged their weapons, and the individual was struck multiple times.”

Body cameras and surveillance cameras outside the station house were all switched on and captured the events, Patterson said.

Two vehicles had become engulfed in flames, and police moved the man away from those and gave him medical assistance. Rushed to a hospital, the man was pronounced dead, according to CNN.

An internal investigation is being conducted, as is a separate one by the State Bureau of Investigation, WRAL said.