Body camera footage of the police fatally shooting a 19-year-old Queens man in his kitchen in March shows what the police had described as a “chaotic” situation. But the video, released Friday, also renewed criticism of the decision to open fire on the man, who was holding scissors and seemed to be in mental distress.
The man, Win Rozario, was declared dead at a hospital after the shooting on March 27, the police said. The New York attorney general’s office released the footage from body-worn cameras as part of its investigation into the shooting.
The police arrived at Mr. Rozario’s home in Ozone Park that day in response to a 911 call for someone in mental distress, which officials said they believed Mr. Rozario had placed himself while in “mental crisis.” John Chell, the Police Department’s chief of patrol, said at the time that the officers had arrived within two minutes. The shooting occurred about three minutes after the officers, Matthew Cianfrocco and Salvatore Alongi, arrived at the scene, according to their videos.
Chief Chell had said the shooting occurred after the situation had become “quite hectic, chaotic and dangerous right away.” He said the officers had “no choice” but to shoot Mr. Rozario after he moved toward the officers with the scissors.
But Mr. Rozario’s younger brother, who witnessed the shooting, had disputed the police’s account and insisted that the officers had not needed to fire their guns.
The videos show the officers at first using their stun guns on Mr. Rozario as he stands in the kitchen with the scissors, sometimes moving toward them quickly. Mr. Rozario’s mother repeatedly restrains him and stands between her son and the officers even after he has been hit with the stun gun more than once.
After the stun guns fail to subdue Mr. Rozario, the police fire at least four shots at him from the living room, the videos show. As he is shot, Mr. Rozario appears to be several feet inside the kitchen, and his mother lies on the floor in the kitchen doorway between him and the closest officer.
“Reliving this is traumatic and painful,” the Rozario family said in a statement on Friday. “We wish it wasn’t necessary for the video to be public. The video that was released makes it clear that Win should be alive, but the police came and murdered him in our kitchen without any care for him or us. The police created a crisis and killed him in cold blood.”
Officer Cianfrocco and Officer Alongi responded to the apartment building at 1:52 p.m., according to the videos. In the videos, Mr. Rozario’s brother Utsho Rozario, who says he is 17, meets the officers on the first floor and tells them that his brother called 911 and is having “an episode.”
“What kind of episode?” Officer Alongi asks, before using a disparaging slang term for a mental health disorder. “Is he a bipolar schizo?”
“He doesn’t even know what he’s doing, to be honest,” Utsho Rozario says. As he leads the officers to the second floor, he adds that he isn’t sure if his brother has an official diagnosis.
As soon as Win Rozario sees the two officers inside the apartment, he retrieves a pair of scissors from a drawer at the rear of the kitchen. His mother, Notan Ava Costa, rushes over to him and begins trying to wrest the scissors from his hand.
Mr. Rozario then lunges toward the officers, and Officer Alongi fires his stun gun at him. Ms. Costa grabs Mr. Rozario as the officers scream at her to let him go. As she holds onto Mr. Rozario, he falls to the ground in the back of the kitchen. Ms. Costa walks toward the officers with the scissors before turning back to her son. The officers yell at her to get out of the way, but she ignores them.
Mr. Rozario’s brother begs the officers not to shoot his mother. Ms. Costa also cries out, “Don’t shoot” and puts the scissors on a kitchen chair. But the officers fire their stun guns at Mr. Rozario again as he stands near his mother. He screams, then grabs the scissors from the chair and advances toward the officers, who back up as he enters the living room.
The officers draw their guns, and a shot can be heard on the videos as Ms. Costa clings to Mr. Rozario and her other son tries to pull her away. Mr. Rozario backs up into the kitchen, his mother and brother dragged in with him. The officers yell at them both to get out of the way.
“Please do not shoot my mom,” the younger brother says. “I’m so sorry.”
He pulls his mother to the ground, causing her to lose her grip on Mr. Rozario. As Ms. Costa and the younger brother lie on the floor between Mr. Rozario in the kitchen and the police in the living room, Mr. Rozario steps forward as he faces the police, who open fire. At least four gunshots can be heard as Mr. Rozario staggers and then falls to the floor on his stomach.
The Police Department said in a statement on Friday that it was fully cooperating with the attorney general’s investigation. The department’s Force Investigation Division is also reviewing the incident. Both officers are on modified assignment, which means neither can carry a firearm.
“Each year, the N.Y.P.D. receives more than nine million calls for service, approximately 155,000 of which are emergency calls involving people in the throes of an emotional or mental health crisis,” the statement said. “Less than 1 percent of those calls result in police using any form of force; even fewer encounters result in the use of deadly physical force.”
In an effort to reduce the potential for 911 calls involving mental health crises to escalate into violent encounters with the police, New York City started a pilot program in spring 2021 under which mental health professionals and emergency medical workers respond to a portion of such calls in a small number of police precincts. The 102nd Precinct, where Mr. Rozario was shot, is not among the precincts where that program is in place.
“From the start, the insulting language made clear these cops shouldn’t be interacting with anyone who might have or be perceived to have mental health complexities,” Loyda Colon, the executive director of the Justice Committee, a group that says it opposes police violence in New York, said in a statement. “The video shows that the way these cops came in created a crisis situation that they unilaterally escalated multiple times.”
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