Neighbor recalls details of NYPD shooting of armed, elderly Brooklyn man who answered door with a gun

The lethal encounter between police and an elderly Brooklyn man was over almost as soon as it started.

Neighbor Norma Martinez, 70, said her son buzzed two officers inside the building after they answered the Thursday call for a burglary in progress, the situation escalating in an instant after the cops reached the second floor to find the man holding a handgun.

“We hear ‘Boom boom boom!’” she said Friday. “I heard them like firecrackers. I don’t know what happened here, but why would you call the cops over a robbery and answer the door with a gun?”

Caesar Robinson, 78, held a gun in his left hand when he opened his door in response to the officers’ knocks on Thursday afternoon, police said.

Robinson pointed the weapon at the cops before they fired seven shots, said cops. Robinson was pronounced dead at Woodhull Hospital, police said.

A police source said one of the officers, who joined the force in July 2013, fired four times while the other, who joined the force in July 2014, fired three times.

Both officers tested negative for alcohol, and it was the first time either of them had been involved in a shooting, said the source.

Robinson’s gun was a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver loaded with five rounds, said a police source. It was illegally owned, police said Friday.

Authorities said the dead man had no prior interactions with the NYPD before the shooting, and the whole episode lasted less than two minutes.

“I spoke to the officers last night,” NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said Friday. “They were very upset, and they were a little rattled that they were put in that situation. A life and death situation in a three-foot space ... They were sad, and they’re human beings. That’s the job they took.”

Chell reiterated the fatal shooting was captured in its entirety by the officer’s bodycameras. The state Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation, as required by law, launched an investigation into the slaying.

Martinez recalled her neighbor as an elderly man struggling with health issues.

“That old man couldn’t even walk,” she said. “He had to use a cane everywhere. But he did do everything himself, groceries and laundry ... I know one thing for certain, that old man did not deserve to die.”

The officers responded to the Lewis Ave. building after getting a call from a friend of Robinson who described him as an uncle, but who was not related to him.

That man said Robinson reached out to him to say he suspected a break-in at the apartment, police said.

According to NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, the officers were in the narrow hallway outside when Robinson opened the door and stepped outside with the weapon in his left hand before leveling the gun at the two cops.

“He clearly charged at the officers with his gun,” said Maddrey. “We don’t know why yet.”

Philip Banks, deputy mayor for public safety, said the fatal shooting illustrated the over-abundance of guns on the streets of New York.

“I’m not making a political statement here,” he said. “There are more weapons, obviously. There are more guns out in the streets.”

With Emma Seiwell