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Police shot a mentally ill Jersey City man. Now his family is suing.
By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 21, 2024
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Courtesy, Courtnie Washington
By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 21, 2024
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The family of a Jersey City man who was fatally shot by police last summer after his aunt called for help while he was experiencing a mental health crisis is suing local officials over what they say was his “entirely preventable” death.
Andrew Jerome Washington, 52, died after officers in tactical gear lined up outside his apartment, busted open his door, shocked him with a Taser and shot him, according to body camera footage released by the New Jersey attorney general’s office. The videos show that officers tried to talk to Washington for about a half-hour but shot him seconds after opening the door when he started moving toward them with a knife.
The federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday morning accuses police and medical providers of escalating the situation instead of helping Washington, who lived with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and occasional psychosis for more than 25 years. It also alleges that officials violated his rights under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
The lawsuit follows a series of shootings by New Jersey police officers who were called to help people experiencing mental health crises, which have prompted protests and state legislation meant to improve how officials respond to these types of calls.
“We don't want to see it happen to another family,” said Andrew Washington's sister Courtnie Washington, who filed the suit. “It's so wrong. Everything went so wrong.”
The medical center that Washington’s aunt called declined to speak about pending litigation. The city, county and police union did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
But after the shooting, Jersey City's mayor and public safety director both defended officers’ actions.
“I’m very comfortable with the tactics we used,” Public Safety Director James Shea said last August. “I just wish they had ended differently like they do almost every other time.”
Body camera footage of the encounter shows the door of Washington’s apartment, where Officer Stephen Gigante from the Emergency Services Unit stood as he told Washington that he wasn’t in trouble and asked if he was hearing voices. A line of officers snaked down the staircase and outside the building, where Washington’s family said in the lawsuit they were “shut out.” Multiple police vehicles and an ambulance waited on the street.
“We’re here to help you and make sure you’re good,” Gigante can be heard saying in the recording.
Washington can be heard cursing and telling officers not to knock on his door.
“If you don’t want to bother me or disrespect me, leave,” he said. At times, Washington can be heard in the footage coughing and yelling about a “suicide mission.”
After 30 minutes passed and Washington still hadn’t opened the door, police pushed it open and found him walking toward them with a knife, the video shows. Officer Felix DeJesus tried to immobilize Washington with a Taser and Gigante shot Washington twice, according to the attorney general's office, which is legally required to investigate all killings by police in the state.
Washington can then be heard in the video panting and pleading for help.
“I won’t fight,” he says repeatedly.
‘New Jersey has to move quicker’
The lawsuit alleges that Washington’s family had called the hotline for a local medical center several times in the days before he was killed, because they thought he wasn’t taking his medication and needed psychiatric care. But they were told that no mental health personnel were available to come and assess him, the suit states.
When relatives called again the day before the shooting, police came and spoke to Washington on the porch outside his building, according to the lawsuit. He got angry when the officers approached him, the suit says, but they determined that he wasn’t a threat and wasn’t committing any crimes, so they left.
Washington’s aunt, Doris Ervin, told Gothamist last summer that when she called again the next day, a dispatcher told her that police and emergency medical workers would come to check on him. After the shooting, Ervin said she regretted picking up the phone.
“There should be programs in place, sufficient staffing, sufficient funding to ensure that when a family or a person calls for mental health help, they get mental health professionals, not armed police, like they're coming after a violent criminal suspect,” said Amelia Green, an attorney representing Washington’s family.
New Jersey officers have shot and killed several people while responding to mental health calls in the last couple of years.
In March 2023, officers in Paterson shot and killed Najee Seabrooks, 31, after he called 911 while in mental distress. After the shooting, the state attorney general’s office announced that it would take control of Paterson's police department.
Later that year, a Jersey City officer shot and killed Washington. Last month, a Fort Lee police officer shot and killed Victoria Lee, 25, after her brother called 911 and asked for her to be taken to the hospital for mental health care.
In 2021, the state launched a program called Arrive Together, which pairs mental health professionals with police to respond to 911 calls. But no such team existed in Jersey City when Washington was killed.
Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law named for Seabrooks and Washington earlier this year that requires New Jersey to create a community crisis response pilot program and set aside $12 million to fund it in six counties, including Hudson and Passaic counties, where the men were killed.
Yannick Wood with the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice said he wants the state to invest in programs in every county that would send mental health workers without police, who he said aren’t properly equipped to communicate with someone in the midst of a mental health crisis. He said the goal of every mental health call should be “the preservation of human life.”
“New Jersey has to move quicker,” Wood said. “And unfortunately, until they do, I think we're doomed to just repeat what's been happening.”
Washington’s sister, Courtnie, said the sadness of her brother’s death washes over her every morning when she wakes up, and again during a daily alarm she sets for 11:27, to mark her brother’s birthday. She said he flourished through long stretches of life when he received the proper treatment for his illnesses, including in the decade before he was killed.
Now, Courtnie misses her older brother’s advice. She said she recently burst into tears while listening to a recording of Washington recounting the Biblical story of Joseph.
“He doesn't tell it like the way you read it,” she said. “And he was just saying to me: ‘We all have a past, good and bad. And we have to keep looking forward. We have to begin again.’”
Tagged
public safety
new jersey
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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