On March 27, NYPD officers shot and killed 19-year-old Win Rozario of Queens after he called 911 to his home during a mental health crisis. Now, the office of Attorney General Tish James, which is investigating the incident, has released body camera footage from the two cops involved. It shows neither particular bloodthirst nor particular tact, but a situation that did not have to end this way.
This is, at its core, a question about risk. How much risk are officers willing to take on in order to serve the public in situations where that public might present a threat? For a long time, the answer has been “not much,” as officers have been told their highest priority is to ensure their safety. That has begun to change in recent years, as the NYPD has shifted its training approach to de-escalatory tactics, including via the Police Executive Research Forum’s specialized training starting in 2021.
Now is when we’d expect these efforts to bear fruit. Did they fail in this case? The unsatisfying truth is that it’s not nearly clear cut.
The body camera video proves that Rozario advanced aggressively at officers while holding large scissors, not once but multiple times. It’s also clear that his brother had warned the officers at the door about Rozario’s unstable mental state, and that the teenager got much more aggressive after the officers fire their tasers at him, which happens approximately 19 seconds after they enter the apartment, and before they try any de-escalation.
Certainly no one wants the police to be in more danger than is necessary, but the trade-off with the job is the massive state authority comes with some necessity to accept danger, especially if it will help the public they’re sworn to protect. Did two trained officers need to use lethal force to defend themselves from a teenager with some scissors? That will be up to investigators for the AG, Queens DA Melinda Katz and the CCRB.
If nothing else, this incident is a perfect encapsulation of why this type of police response is the wrong approach to these types of calls in the first place. Three years ago, City Hall announced the B-HEARD program to dispatch clinicians and health workers to emergency calls involving mental health crises.
It’s obviously not possible to say whether this encounter would have turned out differently had a B-HEARD team responded — and these often still feature cops when there are safety questions involved — but it’s certainly conceivable that Rozario would be alive and in treatment. Unfortunately, the teams still only serve a fraction of precincts, and statistics show that they handle only a fraction of eligible calls in those precincts.
We can see the encounter for ourselves because James’ office, not the NYPD, released the footage. The department and its head honchos talk constantly about how theirs is an accountable and transparent organization. Yet here, after weeks of swirling questions, they sat on the video. The promise of these cameras, and the reason that they were embraced by both the police union and reform-minded groups, was that they would both exonerate innocent officers and implicate those engaged in misconduct. That doesn’t work if the department is selectively releasing video only when it suits officers’ needs.