New Orleans ? Police officers shot and killed a man brandishing a knife in a confrontation that was partially videotaped by a bystander, setting off another internal investigation of the embattled department.

Monday’s daylight shooting on a busy street was the first involving police since New Orleans reopened after Hurricane Katrina. It follows the videotaped police beating of a man that led to two firings in the department.

A police spokesman, Sgt. David Adams, said Tuesday that the officers who fired on the man were reassigned pending the outcome of the probe, but he defended their response, saying at least one officer’s life was in danger just before the barrage of gunfire.