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The stunned wife of an elderly physician’s assistant killed by police Tuesday night after he pointed a loaded gun at a cop defended her husband as a “nice” man.
Police sources have identified the deceased gun-wielding 79-year-old as Emil Williams of Great Neck, an affluent town on the Long Island’s North Shore.
His weeping wife, Laraine Williams, told The Post in a brief phone interview that she was “not holding up” after her husband’s “horrific” end.
“I’m not holding up,” she said. “My husband was a physician’s assistant. His patients and his staff, I don’t know what they’re going through …. But he was a nice man.”
The couple’s next-door neighbor, Jose Quispe, was also shocked by Williams’ violent end — he didn’t even know his neighbor had a gun.
“I knew the guy a long time, but I didn’t know nothing about that,” Quispe said. “I always said ‘Hi,’ I always talked to him. He’s a nice person … I just saw him about a week ago. He seemed completely normal.”
NYPD cops shot and killed Williams at around 6:40 p.m. on Tuesday outside the 111th Precinct in Bayside, Queens, authorities and law enforcement sources have said.
He’d walked up to the station house and chatted up the officer assigned to security, then allegedly pulled a gun and pointed it at the cop, Chief of Patrol Philip Rivera said during a press conference Tuesday night.
The officer told him to drop it, then called for backup — which brought four more cops to the scene.
“The officer gave verbal commands for the male to put down the firearm and radioed for assistance,” Rivera said. “Additional officers approached and gave additional verbal commands to drop the firearm, but he did not comply and continued to point it at our officer.”
Williams ignored the cops’ repeated demands to back off, Rivera said. That’s when they opened fire, hitting the man several times and killing him.
Authorities later found a loaded Cobra .38 special firearm at the scene.
Earlier in the day, Nassau police had issued a missing person’s alert tied to his car, a white Lexus, according to sources.
Rivera said police still don’t know why Williams did what he did, and it’s too early to tell whether this was a case of suicide-by-cop.
“It’s something we’re looking at,” he said, adding that the incident unfolded in a flash.
“It was pretty instantaneous,” Rivera said. “He exited his vehicle, he approached our officers and despite … numerous commands, he did not drop the firearm, unfortunately. And the officers had to act.
“They attempted to de-escalate this situation multiple times.”
It’s also unclear what Williams said to the cop working security.
“That’s still part of the investigation,” Rivera said. “We’re unsure of that at this point.”
No officers were injured during the confrontation.
Carson Grant, 47, was stopped at the red light near the precinct when he saw the officers get into it with Williams.
“I was facing the precinct, and I noticed there were a bunch of cops,” Grant said. “There was a lot of activity in front of the precinct, there was a car in the middle of the road.
“I didn’t catch what happened,” he said. “But based on the cops’ … body language, I knew something serious occurred.”
Grant said he was traumatized by the scene, and called it “alarming” to see so many cops on one guy.
“It was a bit shocking,” he continued. “I just knew it was something serious the way the cops were moving around.
“They were kind of aggressive.”
