On Monday night, NYPD officers shot and killed two men, Francisco Carvajal and Rafael Laureano, in a Brooklyn apartment. Carvajal had broken into his ex-girlfriend's home and was threatening her and her children with a knife; Laureano was attempting to intervene and was accidentally hit with a police bullet.

The city's medical examiner pronounced a bullet wound to the back as Laureano's cause of death today, and NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis confirmed the finding to the New York Times. But the police, the Times notes, "initially said that Mr. Laureano was stabbed before officers arrived and that he died from those wounds." Laureano's autopsy, however, revealed no stab wounds.

The Times gives a timeline of the incident:

The chaotic scene began a little before 7 p.m., when Mr. Carvajal, 47, came to the apartment of his former girlfriend, Kathy Russo. At first she barred his entry, Mr. Davis said, and called her friend, Mr. Laureano, 52, who came to the apartment.

When Mr. Carvajal returned, she opened the door to tell him to leave, but he pulled out a knife and pushed his way in, Mr. Davis said. He said that Mr. Carvajal and Mr. Laureano grappled as Ms. Russo, 35, locked herself and her children in a bathroom.

At some point, Mr. Laureano fled. In the hallway, he met police officers — a sergeant and four patrol officers — responding to 911 calls of a woman being attacked with a knife.

Inside, Ms. Russo could be heard screaming as Mr. Carvajal hacked at the bathroom door, broke through one panel and reached inside. Ms. Russo knocked the knife from his hand, Mr. Davis said, and used it to cut his arm and chest. But Mr. Carvajal had a second knife, Mr. Davis said.

Then, the police arrived, breaking open the door with Laureano's help, the Wall Street Journal reports, and Laureano followed them into the apartment. (Laureano, Carvajal, and Russo were all reportedly bodybuilders.) Officers attempted to restrain Laureano, but he made his way past them, toward Carvajal, and was hit with one of the dozen-plus bullets that officers fired at the knife-toting attacker.

In a New York Daily News report published the night of the attack, police sources presented conflicting accounts. One high-ranking cop said it was unclear whether Laureano had been stabbed, and another officer said he was "sliced," and that there was "blood all over."

The falsehood about the stabbing may have been an honest mistake—there likely was blood everywhere, as Russo managed to cut Carvajal with his own knife—but that would mean that officers believed that Laureano—who was reportedly feeling well enough to help them bust down a door—had been stabbed before they even arrived.

[Image via Flickr]