The police killing of a 26-year-old Korean-American woman has renewed calls for a better approach to how authorities deal with people suffering from mental health issues.
Friends of Victoria Lee and Asian American community activists gathered outside a community center in Fort Lee on Thursday, calling on authorities to release the body camera footage that captured Lee's death.
“This investigation must be prompt and transparent – there must be no whitewashing or manipulation,” said Amber Reed, co-executive director of AAPI Montclair. “They deserve at least that much from a state that has so badly failed them.”
According to the attorney general's office, Lee died in the early morning hours of July 28 after a family member called 911 to say she had a knife, was in a mental crisis and needed to be taken to a hospital. When family members tried to block officers from entering the apartment, they forced their way in and Lee approached officers in the hallway, where Officer Tony Pickens Jr. shot her once in the chest, killing her, authorities said.
The Attorney General's Office is investigating the shooting, as it does all fatal police-involved shootings.
Lee's family claims she was holding a five-gallon jug of water when she was shot, not a knife, as authorities allege.
The family's attorney, Henry Cho, said the body camera footage will be released after the family has viewed it, which is expected to happen on Friday. The family intends to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the officers and Fort Lee, but said the case is still being processed.
“They're still very upset and agitated and crying a lot,” Cho said. “We just want to pray for them. That's all we can do right now.”
Family advocates urged Fort Lee officials to join the state's “Alive Together” program, which pairs officers with mental health professionals when responding to some emergency calls. More than 200 police departments, including seven in Bergen County, now participate in the program.
Others called for authorities to overhaul the way they respond to mental health crisis calls, arguing that police should not be involved at all, but instead social workers and mental health professionals.
Yannick Wood of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice speaks at a vigil for Victoria Lee, a 26-year-old woman who was shot and killed by Fort Lee police during a psychotic episode. (Sophie Nieto Munoz | New Jersey Monitor)
Yannick Wood of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice called Lee's death “the latest example of New Jersey police using deadly force at a time when compassion and clinical care was needed. Wood cited the deaths of Najee Seabrooks of Paterson and Andrew Washington of Jersey City, who were shot and killed by police while experiencing a mental health crisis.
Wood called on officials to fully implement the Seabrooks-Washington Community-Led Response Act. The law, signed by the governor in January, established a new state advisory committee aimed at determining best practices for emergency response. However, according to northjersey.com, the 13-member committee has yet to meet, even though the law requires it to meet within 45 days of the bill being signed.
Zellie Thomas, an activist with Black Lives Matter Paterson, said families across the state are afraid to call 911 for help because they fear a police response. Police failure to respond keeps mental health crises from escalating into tragedies, he said.
“When you call 911 for help, you should get help, not bullets,” he said. “It doesn't matter if you're armed or unarmed.”
Tara Oliver, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, which oversees Alive Together, said more than 50% of New Jersey residents live in the 219 municipalities covered by the program, and the state hopes to eventually make it available to all residents. The current state budget has $20.1 million earmarked for the program's expansion, Oliver said.
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