A muggy summer night, a birthday party, a barbecue, and music: These are some of the undisputed facts surrounding a dispute between residents and police at a Brooklyn housing project Monday night that resulted in one man being shot by an officer.

Exactly what happened is another matter: Did police justifiably shoot a man they said hit an officer over the head with a metal scooter? Or did police overreact by shooting the man who relatives claim was defending his stepfather from police officers’ batons?

Yesterday, City Council Member Charles Baron joined witnesses of the events in calling into question the police department’s version of Monday night, when a dispute at the Glenwood Houses in East Flatbush left Robert Ramirez, 28, with a gunshot wound and his stepfather, Jose Morales, 49, under arrest. “Is this what we pay police to do?” Mr. Baron asked outside Brookdale Hospital, where Mr. Ramirez was listed in stable condition.

According to police, officers responding to a noise complaint at the housing development encountered Mr. Morales, who they said was disorderly and resisted arrest. As they tried to subdue him, police said, Mr. Ramirez attacked both officers from behind, hitting them with a metal scooter. At that point, one of the officers shot Mr. Ramirez, striking him once in the torso.

“I think it’s reasonable to say they were in fear of serious injury, perhaps even death,” the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said yesterday, speaking to reporters about the Glenwood shooting, and another police-involved shooting in Bedford-Stuyvesant yesterday.

Police also provided a recording of the 911 call placed by a witness, during which the caller can be heard telling the operator: “They are attacking the cops out here in Glenwood.”

According to police, the caller hung up as backup officers arrived, and Mr. Ramirez was taken to Brookdale Hospital. He was later charged with first-degree assault, and Mr. Morales was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and obstructing governmental administration. The two officers were taken to Kings County Hospital, police said.

Some witnesses told a starkly different story. They said excessive force was used against Mr. Morales, whom police tried to arrest after he asked them why they were issuing a ticket for the music being played. Witnesses said officers pushed Mr. Morales against a fence, and started beating him with nightsticks as they crouched above him on a bench.

Mr. Ramirez’s ex-wife, Dominique Perry, said officers did not stop hitting him after she told them he couldn’t speak English. “Well, we’re gonna make him understand English today,” she recalled them saying.

According to Leonard Jackson, 38, who said he was holding Mr. Ramirez back so as to avoid a confrontation with police, Mr. Ramirez did not hit anyone with a scooter.

Outside Brookdale yesterday, Mr. Ramirez’s aunt, Margarita Ramirez, said: “They abused these two people.”

Witnesses also described long-standing tension between residents and officers patrolling the housing development, and they complained of unwarranted ticketing and other incidents of excessive force.

“Enough is enough,” a resident who saw the shooting, Rakim Washington, 37, said. “When is it gonna end?”