By TOM HAYS
Associated Press

NEW YORK - The mother of an unarmed mentally ill teenager who could be heard on a 911 call yelling "I've got a gun!" cautioned police that she didn't think he was armed before officers killed him in a 20-bullet barrage.

But police officials insisted Tuesday that Khiel Coppin, 18, gave five officers no choice but to open fire after he suddenly charged them outside his mother's home with a black object in his hand; the object turned out to be a hairbrush.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the teenager pointed the brush at officers "as if he were aiming a gun" and repeatedly ignored orders to "stop, show his hands and get on the ground." He said officers reasonably believed the victim was about to use deadly force and their response appeared to be within police department guidelines.

Coppin was brandishing a pair of knives when officers first arrived and taunted them by saying, "Come get me. I have a gun. Let's do this," Kelly added.

The family of the victim denounced the police department for ruling too quickly that the officers were justified in their response.

"Nobody but Houdini himself could have decided that in 24 hours," family attorney Paul Wooten said.

The victim's brother complained that his background had been distorted by the media.

"He is a human being," said Joel Coppin. "What we want is simply justice.... We don't want headlines. We want justice for Khiel so every young black man in the city'll never go through this again."

Coppin's stepfather, Reginald Owens, was quoted in Wednesday editions of the Daily News as saying, "He didn't have to be killed."

Police said two of the shooters were Hispanic and three were white.

They were identified in Wednesday editions of the News and The New York Times as four officers and a plainclothes detective, all with at least 10 years of experience.

One of the officers fired six shots, while another fired five and two fired four; the detective, the only one in plainclothes, fired one shot, the papers reported.

The medical examiner said bullets hit Coppin in the chest, hip, forearm, knee, thigh and ankle, the papers reported.

The 17-minute episode began at about 7 p.m. Nov. 12, when officers arrived at the Brooklyn home in response to a report of a dispute involving a gun. The mother had summoned a psychiatric intervention team earlier in the day, claiming her son was suicidal, but he took off before the team arrived, Kelly said.

According to the 911 call, while the emergency operator took down the address in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a male voice was overheard in the background saying, "I got a gun, and I'm gonna shoot you," and, "I've got a (expletive) gun!"

The mother, Denise Owens, told the operator, "This ... you know ... this kid is a problem. You can even hear him?"

The operator: "Who is that?"

The mother: "That's supposed to be my son!"

When a 911 operator called back about five minutes later to ask Owens for a description of her son and the weapon, she told the operator, "He does not have a firearm," a second transcript shows.

"I'm flipping out," the mother added. "I can't handle this."

When officers arrived at the home, they encountered Coppin inside with the knives. They backed off and ordered his mother and younger sister outside.

The teen began screaming from a first-floor window at his mother and officers before climbing out of the apartment window and crossing a sidewalk toward the officers while holding the hairbrush in his hand, police said.

The officers backed up and ordered him to stop, police said. When the teen refused and kept approaching them, they began shooting from a distance of 5 to 7 feet, police said.

Police said eight of the 20 bullets struck Coppin, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.

"This was a terrible tragedy for Khiel's family," Kelly said.

Investigators also recovered notes they said were written by the victim with rambling observations about death and disillusion. One read: "Those closest 2 death iz closer 2 happiness."

A neighbor, Bernice Sanders, said she looked out her window Monday night after hearing the police order someone to "Get down!" She also described seeing officers with their guns drawn, taking cover behind a car.

"The boy did not respond to them," she said. "Next thing gunshots, ‘Boom, boom, boom.' The young boy is laying on the ground. They handcuffed him on his back."

Asked whether the incident could be a case of "suicide by cop," Kelly said, "That's certainly a distinct possibility."

Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch was quick to come to the officers' defense.

"This is an unfortunate situation where the deceased convinced everyone involved - from family members to responding officers - that he was in possession of a gun," Lynch said. "Tragically, he sought and succeeded in forcing a deadly confrontation with police."

Police said the teen's mother had attempted to have him hospitalized earlier that day. They said the teen had a history of mental illness.

The killing of an unarmed victim in a hail of police gunfire brought back memories of previous high-profile incidents: the 50-bullet barrage that killed the unarmed Sean Bell on his wedding day in November 2006, and the 1999 killing of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was hit by 19 of the 41 shots fired by police in the Bronx.

AP writer Sara Kugler and AP Television News Producer Ted Shaffrey contributed to this report.