The maniac who was gunned down by New York’s Finest after trying to bust into a Brooklyn precinct and slashing a hero cop in the face was a 36-year-old nut with a rap sheet.
Justin Coleman, who was last busted on MacDougal Street in April 2024 and charged with assault, was pronounced dead on arrival at Brookdale Hospital following the shocking Sunday morning incident, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Police said the suspect tried to get into the NYPD’s 73rd Precinct stationhouse in Brownsville through a back door shortly before 5:30 a.m. — and tried to slash a female cop’s throat when she confronted him.
The unnamed officer was instead cut in the face, with her attacker running off with cops on his tail.
Police caught up with him outside a housing project about two blocks away, and opened fire when he refused to drop the 14-inch butcher knife and lunged at cops, officials said.
The wounded officer, the daughter of two NYPD detectives — one retired and one still on the job — was slashed in the head and left ear, PBA president Patrick Hendry said Sunday.
“She could’ve been killed,” Hendry said. “She knew that he was a danger to the people in this neighborhood, and she didn’t care that she was injured at that point.
“She wanted to stop the threat, and that’s what she did,” he said. “She made chase along with the other police officers.”
Police have not officially identified Coleman as the suspect, but law enforcement sources said he was the knife-wielding nut who cut the cop before he was chased and shot dead.
Coleman’s neighbor, Anthony Patterson, 35, called the incident a “very unfortunate situation on both sides.”
“That’s hard, man. We’re neighbors but we live like family … The guy [Coleman] didn’t bother anybody. He didn’t make any trouble, he didn’t make any fuss. He minded his own business,” Patterson told The Post.
“And it’s just a very unfortunate situation on both sides. I saw him probably Saturday, going into the building, minding his business. I’m hurt. There should not be a fatal incident where this is concerned. Mental health has a road to pave, so what are we as a people and the department doing for that?” he added.
“I feel like I’m the one who got hit. It could have happened to anybody. Nobody’s perfect. You could be born with a certain IQ or you have issues, but that doesn’t mean if you mess up or when you mess up, you deserve death.”
Details of Coleman’s 2024 arrest were not available Sunday, and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for information on the case.
Meanwhile, Hendry said seeing the injured officer in the hospital was “traumatic” for her parents.
“This is a dangerous environment our police officers are under,” the PBA chief said. “This is what people feel, that they can just come into the stationhouse and attack a New York City police officer.
“That is not acceptable and now going forward, there needs to be a message sent that if you attack a police officer, we’ve been going to courthouses across the city, you know, those who attack a police officer need to face consequences, true consequences,” Hendry added.