CROWN HEIGHTS — On the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, NYPD officers fatally shot Saheed Vassel, 34, in Crown Heights after officials said he “took a two-handed shooting stance” and aimed a metal pipe at them. Investigators recovered what appeared to be a silver pipe, similar to a shower head, at the scene.

Officers were responding to several 911 calls reporting a black man pointing a “silver firearm” at people around 4:40 p.m. on the corner of Utica Ave. and Montgomery St., according to NY Daily News. When four responding officers — one in uniform — arrived to the scene and encountered the man, who NYPD Chief of Patrol Terence Monahan says “took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at the approaching officers.”

The officers then fired 10 shots, striking the victim multiple times about 4:45 p.m. The victim was taken to Kings County hospital where he later died.

Francesca White, who seems to know Vassel, took to Twitter to disprove reports of the victim being “mentally ill.”

Witnesses told the Daily News that plainclothes officers handcuffed the victim as he laid motionless on the sidewalk.

“All he did was just walk around the neighborhood,” neighborhood resident Andre Wilson told the news. “He speaks to himself, usually he has an orange bible or a rosary in his hand. He never had a problem with anyone. The officers from the neighborhood, they know him. He has no issue with violence. Everybody just knows he’s just mentally challenged. This shouldn’t have happened at all.

The investigation remains ongoing.