For hours, Paterson police begged Najee Seabrooks to get out of the locked bathroom, where he threatened to kill himself.
“Everybody is leaving, including you,” one of the officers told him, according to police body-camera video released this week by the New Jersey attorney general’s office.
“I’m dying in this bathroom,” said Seabrooks, 31, a counselor at an anti-violence organization in Paterson, a city of 158,000 in northern New Jersey.
“That didn’t happen, Najee,” replied the officer. “Not on my watch. Try your best. You will live a very long time. This is not how it ends for you.
But by 12:51 p.m. on March 3, about five hours after someone called 911 to report a man in distress, Mr. Seabrooks was pronounced dead. He was shot by two officers, who shot him after Mr Seabrooks stepped out of the bathroom and “ran towards the officers with a knife in his hand”, according to a statement by the general’s office. Attorney General, the agency is investigating the shooting. .
The attorney general’s office has identified the two officers who opened fire as Anzore Tsay and Jose Hernandez, both members of the department’s emergency response team.
The case rattled the city, where Mr. Seabrooks’ colleagues and family asked to know why mental health professionals were not allowed into the apartment so they could help. Protesters marched to criticize the shooting and called for the US Department of Justice to investigate. A week after Mr. Seabrooks was shot, several dozen people gathered at a restaurant owned by one of the officers involved in the shooting and banged and kicked the security gate.
Footage released by the attorney general, taken from at least four hours of video from officers’ cameras at the scene, shows police repeatedly asking for Mr Seabrooks, who can be seen at several points holding bloody knife, go out and talk to his mother. They asked him how they could help, convinced him not to cut himself anymore and then begged him to get out so they could take him to the hospital. Then, at 12:35 p.m., Mr. Seabrooks rushed out of the bathroom.
“It was a dangerous situation there,” said Andre SayeghMayor of Paterson, his administration has repeatedly urged the state attorney general’s office to release footage from police body-worn cameras.
“The officers are there to deliver aid and as you’ll see in the videos, they’re doing their best to avoid a tragic end,” he said.
Police did not respond to messages for comment. The attorney general’s office said it would not comment beyond its statement, citing the ongoing investigation.
Members of the Paterson Healing Collective, the anti-violence organization where Mr Seabrooks worked for two years as an interventionist, said the videos show exactly why police should not be the responders. precisely when a person is in a mental health crisis.
Officers withdrew their weapons when they spoke to Mr Seabrooks, who told officers he had three knives and “a gun, fully loaded”.
Members of the Paterson Healing Collective say they were prevented from intervening by police as they waited for hours in the lobby of the multi-storey apartment building where Mr Seabrooks was shot.
Liza Chowdhury, project manager for the Paterson Healing Collective, said Mr Seabrooks had repeatedly texted members of the collective that morning to ask where they were.
“’I need to hear your voice. I need to see your face,’ she said he texted. Even after Mr. Seabrooks’ colleagues gave the messages to officers at the scene, “the police still wouldn’t let us in,” Ms. Chowdhury said. When she asked the city’s director of public safety, Jerry Speziale, to allow her employees to enter the apartment, she said he replied that the department had sent a unit trained to reduce climbing situations like this.
Mr Speziale did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Ms Chowdhury says her staff are trained to talk for hours with people who are going through “the worst situations of their lives”.
“Any mental health professional knows patience is key,” she says. “Patience, empathy, understanding.”
Ms Chowdhury, who served as a probation officer for 10 years, said giving a gun to someone going through a mental health crisis only added to the paranoia and fear.
“There’s something wrong with the system when someone calls out about a mental health issue and they end up being punished,” said Yannick Wood, director of criminal justice reform at the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice. approaching men with guns.”
When police arrived, Mr Seabrooks was already in the bathroom. He arrived at his brother’s apartment around 2 a.m., took “several knives” and locked himself inside, his relatives reported to the police.
The family said that “he may have had a bad reaction to something he smoked,” according to the attorney general, “and his actions were completely out of character.”
Uniformed officers tried to convince him to come out, then his mother spoke to him from outside the door.
“Please, Najee,” she said, crying. “I love you, Najee. Open door. Najee, come on, please open the door for me.”
He won’t go out.
According to the video, his mother told police Mr Seabrooks had no history of mental illness, but the job entailed helping guide young people away from violence, was becoming stressful.
“I think that’s coming to him,” she said. “He’s seen a lot of his friends get killed.”
When an officer told her that Mr Seabrooks had told police he had a gun, she seemed confused.
“Where did he get the gun from?” she asked.
A specialized unit soon arrived, carrying shields, heavy guns, and helmets.
At 11:46 a.m., Mr. Seabrooks, topless, popped out the door and saw officers pointing guns at him. He let out a scream.
“That’s how you came?” he asked, then cursed.
“Put down the knife, man,” one officer demanded.
“Less lethal,” ordered a supervisor. “Less lethal.”
They told him to stop cutting himself and get out. Mr. Seabrooks in the bathroom is barely visible from camera angles, but he can be heard screaming.
The officers continued to plead with him to put down the knife.
“Just put them down,” said one of the officers. They offered to let him talk to his mother again.
“I’m sure she doesn’t want to see you like this,” said one officer, seconds before Mr. Seabrook jumped out the door.
“Drop it!” shouted the officer, just before the shot was fired.
Ms Chowdhury said Mr Seabrooks’ family planned to hold his funeral on Saturday. He has a daughter, about 4 years old, she said.
Ms Chowdury said that while her officers were on the scene, she texted Mr Seabrooks and spoke on the phone with police. Then her agents called to say they heard gunshots.
“I just said no. I don’t believe it,” she said. “I never thought the police would kill him.”
