Nassau County police commended for swift action in North Bellmore shooting

A scary scene unfolded last week in North Bellmore, when the Nassau County Police Department received several 911 calls on Aug. 15, reporting a woman firing a black handgun into the air near the busy intersection of Jerusalem and Bellmore avenues.

When they arrived, officers said, they saw a female subject pointing a black and silver handgun at passing motorists and police. A patrol vehicle sideswiped her and knocked her to the ground.

At that point, police arrested Kiber Calderon, 31, of 454 Lexington Ave. in Brooklyn, who, it turned out, is a man who also goes by the name Hanna Carillo.

Calderon sustained minor injuries and was being treated at the Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, and also undergoing psychological evaluation.

The officer who drove the patrol car was taken to an area hospital and treated for trauma, and remained out on sick leave as the Herald went to press on Tuesday.

The day after the incident, the NCPD held a press briefing to address several questions about the incident. County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder joined County Executive Bruce Blakeman at the Nassau County Police Academy, in Garden City, to detail the suspect’s reported gender discrepancy and to discuss how Calderon was taken down by police.

“The original call came in with a description of a female and the clothing description of an orange top, blue jeans and a green hat,” Ryder said. “That was the exact description when we pulled up on the scene, and obviously, she was waving a firearm. She appears to be a woman — she identifies, though, as a male when we speak to her.”

Calderon was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a firearm, three counts of menacing, reckless endangerment, menacing a police officer, criminal contempt of court, and criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Prior to the shooting, Calderon was seen leaning on a fence, according to a witness, Ryder said. The suspect then pulled out the firearm, pointed it in the air and fired a round, before walking down Jerusalem Avenue toward Bellmore.

“The law is written that any deadly, physical force used against you or another — you can equal that force with deadly physical force,” Ryder said of the police vehicle knockdown. “In this situation, the officer made a choice to use his vehicle.

“He posted his weapon after having it out,” Ryder went on, referring to the officer. “I asked him at the hospital: why? He said, ‘Because if I fired and I missed, there were people standing behind.’ That officer made a sound decision, a very good decision, and because of the decision, probably saved the lives of not (only) others, but himself and the individual with that gun.”

In training, Ryder explained, police learn to use any method necessary to stop a threat. “That threat was a threat to my officer,” he said. “That threat was a threat to the public — and that threat was stopped.”

“I would like to commend the police officer for taking swift action and using all the tools in the toolbox,” Blakeman said. “We train our police officers at this academy and intelligence center, and that training is very extensive. I believe we have the most professional police department in the United States. We don’t train robots, we train human beings.”

Blakeman called the actions of the officer “ingenious.”

“This police officer took the action that he took, and why is that?” he said. “Because you had a subject that was pointing the gun at the public, discharged the firearm on a public street, and pointed the firearm at police officers and then pointed the firearm at his head, which obviously meant that he might have committed suicide, had not the police officer taken swift and effective action.”

Calderon was arrested twice in June for burglary in New York City, and released without bail.

“Here we go again,” Blakeman said. “The revolving door of justice which makes our communities less safe. But again, this individual was very fortunate to not be seriously injured — we are very fortunate that none of our police officers, no members of the public, were injured.”

Town Councilman Chris Carini, who represents Bellmore, told the Herald that he agreed that Calderon should not have been let go under the state’s cashless bail policy after his arrests in June.

“This individual should not have been free on our streets,” he said. “A soft-on-crime approach by Albany and New York City spills on our streets. This individual, after back-to-back felony arrests, should not be free on our streets. As a retired police officer, I will continue to demand that we hold criminals accountable.”