Five days after an unarmed man was shot and killed by a narcotics detective
outside a bar on Eighth Avenue, investigators are focusing on two widely
divergent versions of the events that led up to the shooting of the man,
Patrick M. Dorismond.

After interviews with nearly two dozen civilian and police witnesses,
focusing intensively on a handful of significant accounts, investigators
have still found no agreement on who started the scuffle that preceded the
shooting Thursday morning. Two police detectives say it was Mr. Dorismond.
His friend and co-worker Kevin Kaiser, who was at his side that night, says
one of the detectives who approached Mr. Dorismond to try to buy drugs threw
the first punch.

Although there were a number of other people on the sidewalk outside the
Wakamba Cocktail Lounge at 543 Eighth Avenue, most told the police that they
had not seen much of the incident, including how the gunshot came to be
fired, according to investigators. As a result, they are largely
concentrating on the accounts of Mr. Kaiser and a second civilian, who
acknowledged that he had not seen how the altercation began, and the two
detectives, investigators said.

Since shortly after the shooting, Mr. Kaiser has said the police were the
aggressors in the quick, chaotic confrontation.

But at a news conference yesterday held to announce his plans to sue the
city, Mr. Kaiser seemed to change his account somewhat, saying it was
Anthony Vasquez, the detective who fired the fatal shot, who threw the first
punch. He had earlier told investigators and a reporter for The New York
Times that the undercover detective who first asked Mr. Dorismond for drugs,
Anderson Moran, threw the first punch.

But Mr. Kaiser's lawyer, who said he had filed notice of his intent to sue,
insisted that Mr. Kaiser had never changed his account and said newspaper
articles did not accurately reflect his client's version of events.

The lawyer, Sanford A. Rubenstein, who has also sued the city on behalf of
Abner Louima, the man tortured in the bathroom of a Brooklyn police station,
said Mr. Kaiser's legal action will accuse the city of violating Mr.
Kaiser's civil rights, of false arrest and of inflicting emotional distress.

Mr. Rubenstein said the detectives used excessive force in arresting Mr.
Kaiser, who was held for more than 12 hours but never charged with a crime.

Mr. Kaiser yesterday described his confrontation with Detective Vasquez,
Detective Moran and Detective Julio Cruz, who along with their narcotics
team from the Manhattan gang investigation division had already made eight
marijuana arrests in the area around the Port Authority bus terminal that
night.

"I have come to set the record straight for my friend," Mr. Kaiser said, his
voice quavering as he read from a statement. "My friend Patrick's voice was
silenced by a bullet from a policeman's gun."

Mr. Kaiser said he had been standing next to his friend when three men who
looked like "derelicts" approached and asked for marijuana. After Mr. Kaiser
and Mr. Dorismond told them to go away, one of the men, whom Mr. Kaiser
identified as Detective Moran, began taunting them with short, snorting
animal noises. Law enforcement officials, however, said Detective Cruz had
acknowledged that he had made the sounds, in what he said was a joke to
defuse the situation.

Then, Mr. Kaiser said, Detective Vasquez punched Mr. Dorismond. "The blow
struck his upper body," he said. "Patrick did nothing to cause the police
officer to strike him. At or about the same time I heard the gun go off, I
was rushed by a number of police officers who punched my head, my face,
manhandled me, threw me on the ground."

Mr. Kaiser said one of the officers had told another to cuff Mr. Dorismond,
and had referred to him using an expletive. He said it "goes to show how
insensitive these police officers were at the time."

In many respects, other than the question of who threw the first punch and
whether the detectives identified themselves as the police, the accounts
provided by the two detectives and Mr. Kaiser are similar, several
investigators said. Both Detective Moran, who was trying to make the drug
buy, and Detective Cruz, who like Detective Vasquez was a "ghost" whose
responsibility was to shadow and protect the undercover detective, have
given their accounts to the Internal Affairs Bureau and the office of
District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau of Manhattan, the investigators said.

Like Detectives Cruz and Moran, Mr. Kaiser told investigators and
prosecutors that he had not seen the shooting. The two detectives told
investigators that they had seen Detective Vasquez begin to draw his weapon
as the confrontation heated up, and that although they had seen the muzzle
of the compact Kahr K-9 9mm pistol clear his waistband, they had not seen
him fire the shot, according to a person who has heard the account. They
both said they had seen Mr. Dorismond lunge at the gun.

Detectives Moran and Cruz told investigators that the scuffle erupted so
fast that they had not had an opportunity to withdraw, as they are trained
to do, officials said.

Yet investigators said Detective Moran's signal for trouble over a body
transmitter came before the first blow.

The detectives also said Mr. Kaiser appeared to be trying to restrain Mr.
Dorismond. An investigator who heard his account said Mr. Kaiser's eyes were
glued to Detective Moran as the confrontation unfolded because he had wanted
to help his friend if the detective had attacked.

In fact, more than 12 hours after the attack, the investigator said, Mr.
Kaiser still thought the three men who confronted them were muggers and that
the shot that struck Mr. Dorismond was fired by one of several other
officers who had pulled up in a sport utility vehicle after the scuffle
erupted.

Clad in police raid jackets and with guns drawn, they were part of a backup
unit.

As questions about the incident continued to surface, First Deputy Police
Commissioner Patrick E. Kelleher went to City Hall yesterday to clarify
several issues for news organizations because Police Commissioner Howard
Safir was away on a family vacation this week.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said Mr. Safir was in constant
contact and monitoring the situation. "Howard works 24-7 and deserves to
take time with his family," said the spokeswoman, Sunny Mindel.