After NYPD officers saw a man who had been weaving erratically and blocking traffic just before 10 p.m. on Saturday night near the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, it was initially believed that he reached for his pocket to grab a weapon. At that moment, the two officers fired three shots but missed him, striking a 54-year-old woman in the right knee and grazed a 35-year-old woman in the buttocks instead, in the busy New York street, WCBS New York reported.

After the two women were taken to hospitals, where they were both listed in stable condition, the "emotionally disturbed" unarmed man was taken into custody after a police sergeant subdued him with a Taser. He went to Bellevue Hospital and was listed in stable condition.

The NYPD has taken heat because of the incident:

"He was just wandering, running away from the cop," said a witness who described himself as a retired police officer and did not want to be named. "He tried to run and ended up getting hit by three different cars."

The incident hearkens back to when nine bystanders were injured during a police shooting when two officers fired at a man who had just gunned down a former co-worker outside the Empire State Building last year. In that incident, officers fired a total of 16 shots just around the corner of one of the world's most popular tourist attractions, and a large crowd soon dispersed as bullets ricocheted off posts, creating bedlam in Midtown Manhattan .