A man who had been wielding a samurai sword died Sunday night after he was tased by police officers at his Queens home, the NYPD said.
Police were called to the home of 30-year-old George Zapantis on 150th Street in Whitestone around 9:45 p.m., over reports of a man with a firearm there, an NYPD spokesperson said Monday night.
The officers found Zapantis in the basement, holding a samurai sword, and told him to drop it, cops said.
“He approached the officers with the sword, they deployed their tasers,” the spokesperson said. “He was subsequently subdued.”
As he was being arrested, Zapantis appeared to go into cardiac arrest, cops said. He was taken to New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital and pronounced dead.
The family is now demanding answers — their attorney, George Vomvolakis, tells The Post he believes police used excessive force during the encounter.
“Although it is early in our investigation, it appears that we may have another incident of excessive force by police officers who repeatedly shot Mr. Zapantis with a Taser, which ultimately caused his death,” Vomvolakis said Monday night.
Zapantis, who had mental health issues, may have panicked and resisted arrest, but was unarmed, according to the lawyer, who cited witness accounts, including one captured on video.
“At the time that he was tased they had him under control and he had his hands behind his back,” Vomvolakis said. “They were trying to handcuff him. There was no sword in his hand.”
Three short cell phone clips shown to The Post by the family’s lawyer show Zapantis at different points in the struggle, which took place under a red metal awning in a narrow alleyway on the side of his house.
The clips are shot from above, and in each, Zapantis is closely surrounded by one female and four male uniformed cops.
He appears to resist being handcuffed; at some points it looks like he is leaning against a metal column that supports the awning, and gripping it from from behind.
At no point does he verbally or physically threaten the officers or appear to have anything in his hands.
And the officers say nothing about a weapon as one pulls on the back of Zapantis’ sleeveless T-shirt and several of them angrily shout at him to cooperate.
“Put your hands behind your back!” two officers — first a male voice, and then a female voice — shout repeatedly in the first clip, which lasts seven seconds.
“Put your hands behind your back and stop— understand me?” one of the male cops shouts.
The second clip is 10 second long, and the voices of the officers surrounding Zapantis are louder and angrier.
“Get down! Get down!” several shout. One taps him on the shoulder as another says, “You’re gonna get tasered again if you don’t get down.”
“Hit him AGAIN!” one cop says, impatience rising in his voice. The sound and flash of a taser is seen.
The third clip, also only 10 seconds long, starts with another static Taser blast.
As one cop shouts, “Down on the ground!” Zapantis begins collapsing; he moans, “Oh, f—!” as the sparks strike his torso.
“Put your hands behind your back!” one cop repeats three times.
Although Zapantis’ next-door neighbor described him as “a little weird,” he also said the man was “nice” and a “polite” person who would shovel their snow without ever asking for a cent.
But he had gone through bouts of unusual behavior including going “to the backyard and sometimes howling like an owl,” said the neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous.
Recently, he’d taken to wearing tuxedos and suits and had gotten a new car, she said.
“He would say hi sometimes, sometimes he wouldn’t say hi. He wasn’t mentally OK,” she said in Spanish, with her niece translating.
“He was nice though,” she added. “When he would say hi, he would be polite.”
The NYPD said its Force Investigation Division is looking into the incident.
Additional reporting by Joe Marino