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A Queens woman had just taken a knife away from her brother who “snapped” and had slashed several other family members when police officers responding to the chaotic scene shot her, the family told The Post.
Shanequa Donovan called 911 after her brother, Rashaun Donovan, 48, allegedly began attacking relatives inside their Jamaica home Friday night, her boyfriend, Edward Grant, said Saturday.
The 38-year-old woman even popped her head out of a window and dropped her keys down to officers to let them into the home on 149th Street in Jamaica when they arrived around 9:45 p.m., cops and family said.
She had managed to grab the knife her brother had been wielding and was still holding it when officers who followed screams to a cramped attic bedroom found her and Grant trying to hold Donovan down, according to Grant.
Police ordered the group to get on the floor, he said.
“She was about to lie down on the ground to put the knife down to put her hands up,” her boyfriend said. “I don’t think she realized she still had the knife in her hand.”
The cop said, “‘She got a knife’ and then ‘Pop! Pop!” Grant, 48, recalled.
Shanequa was shot three times, officials said.
Officers performed life-saving measures on her before she was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center, where she remains in stable condition, police said.
Officials said police officers who arrived had no description of the perpetrator.
The officers identified themselves and demanded that the three put their hands up — prompting the two men to comply.
“The female pointed with her left hand at one of the males across the room, but did not raise her right hand,” NYPD Chief of Patrol Phil Rivera said at a news conference at the scene.
“The female still did not comply and moved in the direction of the officers with a knife in her hand,” Rivera continued. ”She was within several feet of the officers when an officer discharged his firearm, striking her.”
Another officer deployed his taser.
Rivera said police didn’t have reason to believe that the female was responsible for the stabbing.
One of the stabbed men was taken to Jamaica Hospital and the two others were taken to North Shore University Hospital in stable condition.
The shooting was caught on body-worn cameras and is being reviewed by the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division, officials said.
The night from hell had started out normal, Grant told The Post, saying he made tacos for his girlfriend, her brother and two other family members who were home.
“He just kind of snapped,” Grant recalled.
Grant heard a scuffle and went downstairs to see what was going on. That’s when he saw his girlfriend’s brother, Rashaun Donovan, “with two knives in his hand.”
“He was in the living room,” Grant said. “He had the lights off, like waiting to kill us.”
Grant ran back upstairs to the attic bedroom where his girlfriend was and she called police, he said.
“She was frantic,” he recalled. “They probably couldn’t understand what she was saying.”
Karon Davis, 23, who was also in the home at the time of the attack and is the nephew of the alleged attacker, said it “happened out of nowhere.”
“I was immediately the first victim, he broke into my room,” Davis said. “He stabbed me in the shoulder.”
Rashaun Donovan then went up to the attic and broke down the door to get inside, he said. Shanequa pepper-sprayed him.
“She’s screaming ‘He’s going crazy,'” Grant recalled. “He stabbed me. I just started defending myself and my girlfriend. Survival mode.”
Donovan may have lost it because he was supposed to go to a martial arts event in Spain with his parents but missed the flight, Davis said. The couple owns two dojos where Donovan works.
“He was gonna show off for Team USA and all this stuff,” Davis said. “But due to that, I think it was overwhelming pressure…it got to his mental state, and … it just broke him down.”