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Family Of Brooklyn Man Fatally Shot By Police Disputes NYPD's "Suicide By Cop" Narrative
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Dec 22, 2021
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Jake Offenhartz/Gothamist
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Dec 22, 2021
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The family of a Brooklyn man killed by police earlier this week is challenging the NYPD’s description of the death as a “suicide by cop situation" — calling on the department to release body camera footage of the fatal encounter.
Eudes Pierre, a 26-year-old Crown Heights resident, was shot ten times on Eastern Parkway early Tuesday morning, after allegedly charging at police officers with a pink knife. A spokesperson for the NYPD said that Pierre had called the police on himself and left behind a suicide note — a sign that he wanted officers to end his life.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Pierre’s mother, Marguerite Jolivert, spoke to reporters through tears, explaining that her son was in the throes of a mental health crisis. She accused police of rushing to pull the trigger instead of de-escalating the situation or calling crisis professionals to the scene.
“My son was sick. He had a mental disease,” said Jolivert, flanked by sobbing family members and friends. “He didn’t deserve to be killed like an animal.”
Pierre (far right) in high school
Provided by family
A former basketball player at the College of Staten Island who was recently working for Uber Eats, Pierre was taking medication for bipolar disorder, according to his family. A police spokesperson said the department had responded to two prior calls involving Pierre, both of them believed to be suicide attempts.
His death comes as the NYPD continues to face scrutiny over its response to calls about emotionally disturbed individuals. Since 2015, at least 19 people have been killed by police while experiencing mental health emergencies, according to the advocacy group Correct Crisis Intervention Today.
In the last year, the city has experimented with a small pilot program to send emergency medical teams and social workers to non-violent mental health calls. The program showed limited success in its first six months, and Mayor-elect Eric Adams declined to embrace it while on the campaign trail.
Inquiries to both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Adams about the shooting were not returned.
Reverend Kevin McCall, a civil rights leader and spokesperson for the family, called on the department to immediately release the body camera footage.
“I guarantee you, if he was a white kid, he’d be alive today, but because he was a Black boy living under the de Blasio administration, he’s dead,” McCall said. “This is not our first rodeo of mentally ill having issues with the police.”
Just a few blocks from the site of Pierre’s death, police killed another emotionally disturbed individual, Saheed Vassell, in 2018. Both were Black men shot ten times by officers with the NYPD’s 71st precinct while enduring apparent mental health episodes.
A photo of the knife police said Pierre was holding
NYPD
In Pierre’s case, police said they responded to a call at 4:00 a.m. Tuesday of a man with a gun on Eastern Parkway near Utica Avenue. When officers arrived, they said Pierre refused to show his hands, instead sprinting into a nearby subway station.
When he emerged from the station, two officers attempted to deploy their stun guns to no effect. Moments later, Pierre was fatally shot by two officers.
“He ran, literally ran, at one of the officers with the knife in his hand,” NYPD Assistant Chief Michael Kemper said at a press conference earlier this week. “It was at that point where again you hear officers scream to drop the knife and the shots were fired.”
In response to requests for the body camera footage, the NYPD referred WNYC/Gothamist to a policy that gives the department 30 calendar days to make such footage public.
A spokesperson for Attorney General Tish James' Office confirmed the AG was also investigating the incident, but declined to say whether they would share the footage with the family.
At the press conference, the victim’s brother, Roland Pierre, described his young sibling as “selfless, caring, loving.”
“My brother wasn’t a criminal, he didn’t run the streets,” the elder Pierre said. “He had issues, but he was the kind of person that if you needed a dollar, he’d give it to you, even if it was his last one.”
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Crown Heights
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Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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