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Aunt of Jersey City man killed by police says she regrets calling for help
By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 29, 2023
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By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 29, 2023
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Doris Ervin knew the number for the Jersey City Medical Center’s mental health crisis team by heart.
She had been dialing it for weeks in hopes of getting help for her nephew, 52-year-old Andrew Washington, who she said was diagnosed with bipolar disorder about 26 years ago.
Now, she said she wishes she'd never called it.
Ervin called the number on Sunday after Washington went missing for a few days and was saying strange things. A neighbor said he’d been yelling a lot lately.
Ervin then watched from the yard of Washington’s Jersey City home as scores of police in tactical gear tried to coax him out of his apartment, used a Taser on him and then shot him twice, according to the state attorney general’s office. He died at the Jersey City Medical Center soon after.
“We were afraid for his well-being, and we really wanted him to get help because of his illness,” Ervin said. “And I kind of feel bad now that we did. We should have just left it alone.”
Attorney General Matthew Platkin's office is investigating the shooting, as is now required by law for all killings by police and in-custody deaths in New Jersey. Washington’s loved ones and anti-violence organizations also plan to gather outside his home on Randolph Avenue for a vigil on Tuesday evening.
The Jersey City Police Department did not respond to a request for comment, but both Public Safety Director James Shea and Mayor Steven Fulop defended the officers’ actions at a press conference on Monday. Stacie Newton, a spokesperson for the Jersey City Medical Center, said the hospital “expresses its heartfelt condolences” to Washington’s family but said she could not comment on an open police investigation.
Platkin has not yet released body camera footage of the incident, so questions remain about exactly what happened in the moments leading up to the shooting. But Washington’s family and city officials have offered diverging narratives.
‘What do you think’s gonna happen?’
Ervin said she called the mobile crisis team on Sunday morning and asked for a wellness check for her nephew because she thought he had stopped taking his medication. She said her call was transferred to EMS, and that someone on the other end of the line said police would have to accompany the medical workers. Ervin wasn’t surprised. She said police had gone with medical workers to visit her nephew before.
“Then all of this craziness transpired,” she said.
Ervin said she couldn’t even count all the police vehicles that descended on her nephew’s home. She said officers in SWAT gear asked her and other relatives standing in the yard to move aside.
Officers from the Emergency Services Unit spent about a half-hour trying to communicate with Washington from outside his door, according to the AG’s office. The mayor said officers decided to open the door at approximately 3:30 p.m., because they thought Washington might hurt himself or someone else.
When police forced open the door, the AG’s office said, Washington moved toward officers standing in the hallway and stairwell of his second-floor apartment. Officer Felix DeJesus deployed his Taser and Officer Stephen Gigante fired his gun, according to the AG’s office. Police found a knife near Washington’s body, the office said.
One of Washington’s neighbors, Marcello Pacheco, said it made sense that a man who believed aliens were invading his home would try to defend himself against armed officers.
“This guy thinks aliens are gonna attack him, and you’re going in with guns,” he said. “What do you think’s gonna happen? He’s gonna lunge at you with a knife.”
Ervin said hours passed before she realized her nephew had been killed. When first responders carried Washington out of the house and took him to the hospital, she thought police had only used a Taser on him. Then, Ervin thought he was being processed at the psychiatric ward.
She said police were chatting and joking with her and the family, asking for her name and birthday and address as they filled out paperwork. Then, shortly before 5 p.m., someone told her that her nephew was dead.
Mental health program hasn’t reached Jersey City
Officials and those who knew Washington agree that he had a long history with police and mental health professionals in the community. But while police described that history as “violent” and noted that he had been shot during a similar encounter more than a decade earlier, Ervin and Pacheco said he wasn’t a danger — that he just needed help.
Washington was the son of Ervin’s oldest sister, and the two were only eight years apart in age. Ervin said she felt more like a mother to him. She and many of their relatives live on the same block where Washington was killed.
Ervin said they used to go to the movies together and played games on video calls during the pandemic. When they were kids, she said, they used to spend the summers together in Florida, visiting her grandmother and watching the manatees, which he called the “hubba hubbas.”
Ervin said she doesn’t know what else she could have done to save her nephew. She thought she was doing the right thing by calling the hospital’s mental health crisis unit. She’d tried getting help from other programs in different counties, but she said they told her she had to stick with the services available in her community.
Platkin told the "Brian Lehrer Show" on Tuesday that several communities across New Jersey have launched chapters of a program called ARRIVE Together, which dispatches medical professionals to mental health-related 911 calls — sometimes with police. He said the program has already helped about 1,000 people, and that police have not used deadly force or injured anyone.
Platkin said the state Legislature earmarked funding in this year’s budget to expand the program statewide, but that the state is still working to get many local communities on board.
“I’m confident that we will get to every community in the state, as we’ve said we would,” he said. “And when we do, it will save lives. And it will absolutely make cases like this one more rare.”
Jersey City has yet to roll out its own program, and Shea said on Monday that the police department would not send unarmed mental health workers to areas that are potentially dangerous.
“I don’t know what to tell people,” Ervin said. “I just hope this brings a better awareness to folks, or even our politicians, to make some real changes so people can get help.”
Tagged
public safety
jersey city
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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