Authorities said a 911 caller reported the woman had a knife.
Police in Fort Lee, New Jersey, shot and killed a woman who was experiencing a mental health crisis on Sunday, the state attorney general’s office said.
The woman’s identity has not been released. The incident remains under investigation.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, officers with the Fort Lee Police Department responded to a residence around 1:25 a.m. Sunday after a man called 911 to say his sister was having a mental crisis and needed to go to the hospital. The man said his sister had a knife, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, a man who had called 911 spoke with responding officers in the hallway outside the apartment, at which point officers opened the apartment door and saw two women inside.
The two women, one of whom is believed to be the sister of the 911 caller, “told the officers not to go inside and to close the door,” according to the attorney general’s office.
Officers knocked on the door and asked the women to open but they refused, police said, before more officers arrived and broke down the door.
The sister then “approached officers in the hallway,” at which point one of the officers “fired one shot, striking the sister in the chest,” the attorney general’s office said.
Prosecutors said it was unclear whether the woman was holding a knife when she approached officers.
Officers then provided medical treatment to the woman, who was taken to a hospital, authorities said.
She was pronounced dead at the hospital at 1:58 a.m.
The coroner’s office said a knife was found at the scene.
All fatalities that occur during encounters with law enforcement are required to be investigated by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.
