Newly released body-worn camera footage shows NYPD officers shot 19-year-old Win Rozario five times in March, killing him next to his mother and little brother in their kitchen as they pleaded with police not to shoot less than three minutes after officers arrived at his Queens home.
Rozario had called 911 himself, police have said. The footage shows him moving toward officers holding what police later said were scissors just before he is shot.
The two bodycam videos were released on Friday by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who investigates all police killings. They depict a chaotic scene in which Rozario’s mother is trying to hold him back from police while she begs officers not to shoot him. At the same time, Rozario’s younger brother struggles to pull his mother away from Rozario and beseeches the officers: “Please don’t shoot my mom.”
The NYPD released a statement on Friday saying the two officers involved are on “modified assignment,” without their shields or firearms, while the incident is under investigation. Rozario’s family members are calling the killing a murder.
The video shows Rozario grabbing a pair of scissors as soon as the officers enter his kitchen. He is immediately Tasered and shot in the same spot moments later, the video shows. His mother and brother are on the floor next to him as the bullets fly overhead.
In the final seconds of one of the videos, the outstretched palm of Rozario’s mother, Notan Ava Costa, can be seen reaching in the direction of the officer’s gun. “Please, please, please don’t shoot!” she yells. At that point her son has already collapsed after being shot several times.
After the incident, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said at a press conference: “Our officers attempted to take the individual into custody and get him help.” The officers in the video are not heard offering help, and cannot be seen trying to restrain Rozario except by shooting him with a Taser and then bullets.
The family released a statement in response to the videos through their representatives at the advocacy groups Justice Committee and Desis Rising Up & Moving.
“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. The officers should be fired and prosecuted for murder as soon as possible,” the family wrote.
The video begins as police arrive at Rozario’s Ozone Park home on March 27 at around 1:40 p.m. Rozario is standing in the kitchen with his mother in their second-floor apartment. Upon arriving, according to the body-worn camera footage, one officer asks Rozario’s little brother whether Rozario is bipolar or “schizo,” a pejorative term for those with schizophrenia.
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing, to be honest,” the brother replies.
Body-worn footage from the officers, Matthew Cianfrocco and Salvatore Alongi, shows that as soon as police enter the vestibule of the kitchen, Rozario grabs what police later said were scissors from the drawer. He is immediately shot with a Taser by one officer as another officer points a gun at him.
Rozario’s mother then grabs Rozario, as if to catch him as he stumbles from the shock of the Taser. The officers scream, “Let go of him and back up!” and “Tell her to get the f— out of the way!”
Chell had previously said that during this moment, Rozario’s mother knocked the Tasers off of his body.
At this point, the video shows Rozario’s brother pulling their mother off of Rozario. Although Rozario doesn’t appear to be holding anything, he is shot again with a Taser, and appears enraged. He picks up the scissors again and moves toward the officers when an officer shoots at him from behind while his mother continues trying to pull him away. He is shot four more times in the front of his body before he collapses.
Loyda Colon, executive director of the Justice Committee, called it “an execution.”
“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,” Colon wrote in a statement. “The video shows that the way these cops came in created a crisis situation that they unilaterally escalated multiple times.”
Last fall, a mental health crisis response team was called to Rozario’s house, police officials told Gothamist. When police arrived at the apartment shortly after, Rozario had already voluntarily hospitalized himself, they said. The NYPD was called to the home again several days later. Officials did not provide details about what happened that time.
The NYPD said less than 1% of calls for people in emotional or mental health crises result in uses of force, and even fewer turn deadly. “We continually seek to improve how we respond to requests for assistance, and we acknowledge that there is much work to be done,” the NYPD said in a statement Friday.
Rozario joins a list of others shot and killed by the NYPD while in the throes of an apparent mental health crisis, including Deborah Danner, Mario Ocasio, Miguel Richards, Eudes Pierre and Kawaski Trawick.
The NYPD responds to about 15,000 mental health emergency calls every month, according to city data. For most New Yorkers and their loved ones, 911 is the entry point for getting care during a mental health crisis.
Despite widespread calls to have mental health specialists respond to 911 calls involving people in mental distress, B-HEARD – the city’s program pairing police with social workers and EMTs on mental health crisis calls – handles just a fraction of the demand. There are a total of 37 B-HEARD mental health workers, and the group does not have a presence in the precinct where Rozario was killed.
“How many times do we have to stand with families because their loved one was killed by the NYPD, after the NYPD created a crisis and escalated it?” said Simran Thind of Desis Rising Up and Moving. “Why don’t we have teams of trained mental health emergency responders in New York City when it has proven to be more effective than police?”
Cianfrocco joined the NYPD in 2015 and Alongi joined in 2008. They each have a $101,590 base salary, according to city records.
The state attorney general is required under a 2021 law to look into every case where a police officer caused someone’s death either by an act or omission. The office has published police body-worn camera footage in past fatal shootings and can choose to bring criminal charges against police officers.
Mayor Eric Adams released a statement saying he watched the videos and his “heart is broken.”
“I will avoid commenting any further, except to underscore the critical importance of learning from this profound loss and using it as a catalyst for positive change, particularly in how we police and care for those living with severe mental illness,” he said, citing the ongoing investigation.
The NYPD previously denied Gothamist’s Freedom of Information Law requests for the body-worn camera footage and 911 dispatch records in this case.
Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that the officers shot Win Rozario five times.