FLATBUSH, Brooklyn (WABC) — Tensions boiled after officers fatally shot a man inside his East 21st Street apartment in Flatbush on Friday evening.
One officer was struck in the head after bottles were hurled at them.
Police sauy they were serving a warrant on a suspect wanted for multiple homicides after being tipped off about his whereabouts.
Investigators say officers were allowed into the apartment, and that is when they saw Vilmond Jean Baptiste, 38, hiding in the bathtub, fully dressed with his knife.
“The members from the warrant squad gave numerous commands to the male. They gave commands to get out of the tub, to show his hands, and then they realized that he was armed with a knife and then they gave him numerous commands to drop the knife,” said NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey.
The sergeant tried to deploy his taser, but the taser did not work. That is when the suspect came out of the bathroom with a knife and almost attempted to stab the sergeant.
Police officials say at least three officers discharged their firearms, striking Baptiste.
They say Baptiste is a strong person of interest in two separate homicides that resulted in the death of three people, including a stabbing in July where a 54-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man were both stabbed to death. Investigators say he is also the suspect in the fatal stabbing of a 66-year-old in Flatlands back in August.
“His M.O. seems to be he begins to date older women and then they allow him to reside in his house to use narcotics. The relationship was romantic in nature,” said NYPD Chief Kenney.
That victim was identified as Claudette Jones. She was found with multiple stab wounds inside her kitchen.
We’ve detected you are on Internet Explorer. For the best Barrons.com experience, please update to a modern browser.
Summary
Summary
U.S
Europe
Asia
FX
Rates
Futures
ETFs
Crypto
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.
The U.S. Federal Reserve said Wednesday that all 23 banks in this year’s stress tests withstood a hypothetical “severe” global recession and losses of up to $541 billion as well as a 40% decline in commercial real estate prices.
The banks in the 2023 stress tests hold about 20% of the office and downtown commercial real estate loans held by banks and should be able to handle office space weakness that has loomed amid slack demand for space in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The projected decline in commercial real estate prices, combined with the substantial increase in office vacancies, contributes to projected loss rates on office properties that are roughly triple the levels reached during the 2008 financial crisis,” the Fed said in a prepared statement.
Fed vice chair of supervision Michael S. Barr said the exams confirm that the U.S. banking system remains resilient, even in the wake of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank earlier this year.
Barr also alluded to comments he made last week when he said the Fed should consider a wider range of risks that could derail banks in a process he described as reverse stress tests.
“We should remain humble about how risks can arise and continue our work to ensure that banks are resilient to a range of economic scenarios, market shocks, and other stresses,” Barr said in a prepared statement.
The bank stress tests are closely watched because they help determine what capital banks have left over for stock buybacks and dividends. However, expectations are not particularly high at the current time for any huge payouts to investors given talk by regulators about high capital requirements tied to Basel III international banking laws, as well as a challenging economic environment with interest rates on the rise in an attempt to cool economic activity and tame inflation.
Senior Fed officials said banks will be clear to provide updates on their stock buybacks and dividends after the market close on Friday.
For the first time, the Fed conducted an “exploratory market shock” on the trading books of the U.S.’s eight largest banks including greater inflationary pressures and rising interest rates.
The results showed that the largest banks’ trading books were resilient to the rising rate environment tested. That group included Bank of America Corp., the Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup Inc., the Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. , Morgan Stanley , State Street Corp, and Wells Fargo & Co.
Senior federal officials said they’re studying a wider application of the exploratory market shock to other banks.
In last year’s tests, the Fed did not place an emphasis on a rapid rise in interest rates partly because expectations were high for a recession with lower interest rates in 2023. Instead, interest rates rose. That market dynamic was a factor in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which sold securities with lower interest rates at a loss to cover an increase in withdrawals, only to spark a run on the bank.
All told, the Fed said the 23 banks in the stress test managed to maintain their capital requirements even with a projected $541 billion in losses. (See breakdown below).
U.S. Federal Reserve chart
Under the most severe stress, the aggregate common equity risk-based capital ratio would decline by 2.3% to a minimum of 10.1%.
Other facets of the hypothetical recession included a “substantial” increase in office vacancies, a 38% reduction in house prices and a 6.4% increase in U.S. unemployment to a high of 10%. The drop in house prices in this year’s stress tests is worse than the decline in the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.
“The results looked pretty good,” said Maclyn Clouse, a professor of finance at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. “The banks were in pretty good shape from a capital standpoint and they’d be able to withstand some shock. It’s good news.”
Barr’s remark on Fed officials being “humble” reflects the fact that regulators largely missed the Global Financial Crisis as well as the sudden demise of Silicon Valley Bank in March.
“They need to be humble,” Clouse said. “We need to be a little more humble about the results and a little more alert about new challenges that normally haven’t been looked at with stress tests.”
This year, the banks that took part in the stress tests including Bank of America Corp. BAC, -0.60%,
Bank of New York Mellon Corp. BK, -0.64%,
Capitol One Financial Corp. COF, +0.52%,
Charles Schwab Corp. SCHW, +1.01%,
Citigroup C, -0.37%,
Citizens Financial Group Inc. CFG, -1.61%
and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS, +0.07%.
KBW analyst David Konrad said in a June 22 research note he expected no “huge surprises” in addition to capital uncertainty around dividends and buybacks already expected by Wall Street.
Providing guidance on how the Fed will study bank strength, Fed chair of supervision Michael Barr said last week that the Fed needs to consider “reverse stress tests” to look at “different ways an institution can die” instead of simply submitting banks to a specific list of hypothetical hardships.
“We have to work harder at looking at patterns we haven’t seen before,” Barr said at an appearance on June 20.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. made a change in banking targets for investment, sending two banks’ shares in opposite directions Monday afternoon.
Capital One Financial COF, +3.22%
shares rallied more than 5% in after-hours trading while Bank of New York Mellon Corp. BK, +1.37%
sold off in the extended session Monday after filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed Berkshire BRK.B, +0.32% BRK.A, +0.96%
switched its position. The quarterly filing showed a new stake of 9.9 million shares in Capital One as Berkshire sold off its 25.1 million-share stake in Bank of New York Mellon.
“In terms of owning banks, events will determine their future and you’ve got politicians involved, you’ve got a whole lot of people who don’t really understand how the system works,” he said.
Other changes included an increased stake in HP Inc. HPQ, +2.32%,
which grew by 16% to about 121 million shares. That growth was part of a combination of the holdings of General Re Corp., which Berkshire has owned since 1998 but had previously reported its holdings separately as part of New England Asset Management Inc.
“Beginning with the Form 13F to be filed later today, the holdings of Gen Re will be included in Berkshire’s 13F filing,” Berkshire said in a news release earlier Monday. “The NEAM Form 13F filings will no longer include Gen Re’s holdings but they will continue to include NEAM client holdings where NEAM is acting as an investment manager.”
Other holdings affected by that change included Apple Inc. AAPL, -0.29%,
Bank of America Inc. BAC, +2.07%
and Chevron Corp. CVX, +0.37%,
Berkshire said in its news release.
Other stocks that Berkshire made moves with during the first three months of the year included the former Restoration Hardware — RH RH, +1.89%
shares fell 3% after Berkshire disclosed selling off its 2.4 million stake. Berkshire also officially reported selling of its 8.3 million stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSM, +2.67%.
Bank of America BAC, Citigroup C, JPMorgan Chase JPM and Wells Fargo WFC said Thursday that they are each making $5 billion in uninsured deposits into First Republic Bank FRC as part of a $30 billion backstop by 11 banks against the ravaged banking landscape of the past week.
However, First Republic stock fell 14.7% in after-hours trading after the bank said it would suspend its dividend to conserve cash. The bank last paid a quarterly dividend of 27 cents a share on Feb. 9 to shareholders of record as of Jan. 26.
