The First Fatal NYPD Encounter Caught on a Body Camera

The Brian Lehrer Show | Sep 15, 2017

The NYPD has released footage, from police body cameras, of officers shooting and killing a Bronx man. Jim O'Grady, a WNYC reporter, and Carla Rabinowitz, an advocacy coordinator with Community Access who helps train New York City police officers on crisis intervention, talk about the incident, mental health and the video, which is the first fatal police encounter caught on camera since the NYPD began a pilot body camera program.

The fifteen-minute video reveals police officers quickly commanding the subject to drop his knife. Rabinowitz argues that the situation could have been handled differently, "they should have started with an opening to engage the man in a conversation. They could have asked him if he was hungry...talked about sports, or asked about a picture in the room...they had fifteen minutes to engage in a conversation with him."

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