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Months After NYPD Kills Black Man Walking Down The Street, Edited Body Cam Shows Cops Lied…

Despite the Mayor and Police Commissioner’s pon­tif­i­ca­tion there is now evi­dence that tye cops mur­dered this trou­bled young man and lied about it.
No one wat to have a city over­run with crim­i­nals, how­ev­er, when the police mur­der cit­i­zens , then lie about it, who is the good guy?
New York City now have a Black Mayor and Police Commissioner. Crime con­tin­ue to be a prob­lem in the city, the Mayor and police com­mis­sion­er seeming­ing­ly decid­ed it is pru­dent to side with the NYPD which has a sor­did his­to­ry of act­ing like anoth­er crim­i­nal gang, to cov­er up their murders.(mb)

The New York Police Department is fac­ing back­lash after the release of body-worn footage show­ing the fatal offi­cer-involved shoot­ing of a Black man that many say con­tra­dicts the NYPD reports of the incident.

The police agency released videos show­ing the May shoot­ing of Rameek Smith in the Bronx on Sept. 2

The day after the inci­dent, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said Smith was involved in a shootout with offi­cers, leav­ing one offi­cer injured and Smith suc­cumb­ing to his head­shot wound.

However, many say the footage released near­ly four months lat­er does not show Smith shoot­ing at cops. The edit­ed videos also leave unan­swered ques­tions about what hap­pened before and after the fatal shooting.

Smith, who was await­ing sen­tenc­ing for a gun charge, was used as ammo for Mayor Eric Adams‘ argu­ments against bail reform and the need for his new neigh­bor­hood units. The shoot­ing was also applaud­ed by Sewell, who called Smith “a dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal who should not have been on the streets of the Bronx or any­where else.”

Still, after the release of the videos by the depart­ment, many in the com­ments labeled the offi­cers’ liars and murderers.

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“Two shots to the back of the head and the media uncrit­i­cal­ly says that this was a shootout. MURDER,” wrote Avery Lane.

“Body cam­eras…… wow, police that lie and offi­cers that go along with the lie, every­one from top down should be charged with obstruc­tion of jus­tice. And offi­cers at the top should be held just as account­able as offi­cers at the bot­tom,” wrote Tristen Wright.

The NYPD said Officers Dennis Vargas and John Echevarria were patrolling in uni­form in an unmarked car near Third Avenue and Claremont Parkway when they spot­ted Smith.

Vargas got out of the vehi­cle and approached Smith on the side­walk, who start­ed to run. While Vargas pur­sued the man on foot, Smith pulled a 48 9mm firearm, which author­i­ties said was con­cealed. Police offi­cials said bal­lis­tic evi­dence shows Smith dis­charged the weapon at least three times. One bul­let struck Vargas in the left arm.

NYPD offi­cials said Vargas then fired his ser­vice weapon eleven times, and Echevarria, who fol­lowed in the vehi­cle, fired eight shots.

“Having been struck by the gun­fire, Mr. Smith then fell to the ground and was tak­en into cus­tody with­out inci­dent,” an NYPD spokesper­son in a YouTube video with the release of the videos. Smith died hours lat­er at a hospital.

Vargas was released from the hos­pi­tal the next morn­ing and received a hero’s home­com­ing celebration.

“I have to com­mend our coura­geous offi­cers. This is what we asked them to do, and they’re on the streets every day and night risk­ing their lives on behalf of New Yorkers,” Sewell said dur­ing a May 11 news conference.

The depart­ment released videos from Vargas and Echevarria’s body-worn cam­eras, each less than 2 min­utes. There are 60 sec­onds with­out audio before the cam­era acti­vates. Both videos cut off right after the shots.

Vargas’ video shows the vehi­cle pulling next to Smith on the side­walk as the offi­cer gets out to speak to him. There is no audio, so it is unclear why Vargas approached the man, who imme­di­ate­ly start­ed running.

However, the video doesn’t clear­ly show if or when Smith fired his gun. The cam­era is in uni­son with the officer’s swift body move­ment, and Smith is out of the frame for a brief moment before Vargas shoots.

Some view­ers said they heard gun­fire sep­a­rate from the offi­cers just as the audio came on, and oth­ers said they saw a flash, but many said the qual­i­ty of the video is too poor to deter­mine what happened.

“These cam­eras suck. No image sta­bi­liza­tion. Crappy low light capa­bil­i­ties. Where’s the sound for most of the video? I’m not see­ing where the sus­pect sup­pos­ed­ly fired any shots, nor could I make out any muz­zle flash­es,” wrote YouTube Rainkloud. “I don’t under­stand why this video doesn’t pro­vide a time stamp for when the sus­pect pro­duces a weapon and fires.”

NYPD offi­cials said they found the weapon on the scene while inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent. Echevarria’s video shows him fir­ing the shots while stand­ing next to the pas­sen­ger side of the vehicle.

Some crit­ics also say the short videos do not show Vargas being shot and ques­tioned his injuries after leav­ing the hospital.

Officials have not stat­ed why the offi­cers approached Smith. The 25-year-old was under men­tal health super­vi­sion, await­ing sen­tenc­ing for car­ry­ing a gun while on pro­ba­tion for a rob­bery charge.

Adams imme­di­ate­ly blamed the inci­dent on the state’s bail reform law that blocks judges from hold­ing sus­pects in jail who can­not afford to pay bail.

“People want to ask, why am I crack­ing down on fare eva­sions? That’s why,” the may­or said the day after the shoot­ing. “People want to ask why we con­duct­ed 300,000 sta­tion inspec­tions. That’s why.”

However, reports show a judge denied pros­e­cu­tors’ request for bail because of Smith’s men­tal health his­to­ry. Smith was diag­nosed with bipo­lar dis­or­der and schiz­o­phre­nia when he was 16, sources told the New York Post.

He plead­ed guilty to the weapons charge in December and was placed under the care of RevCore, a men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­gram. Prosecutors argued that Smith should’ve been held on bail because of a weapons charge from his 2016 rob­bery conviction.

Vargas and Echevarria were mem­bers of the Patrol Borough Bronx Safety Team, one of many new police units cre­at­ed by Adams to crack down on crime, espe­cial­ly gun vio­lence. The units have been com­pared to the department’s pre­vi­ous plain­clothes units that were dis­band­ed in 2020 after being involved in mul­ti­ple police shoot­ings and the sub­ject of sev­er­al complaints.

“The num­ber of shoot­ings we respond to every night is despi­ca­ble,” Adams said.

Reports show Vargas was assigned to the Bronx safe­ty team last October. He has received at least 39 civil­ian com­plaints from civil­ians, 12 of which were sub­stan­ti­at­ed by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, accord­ing to reports. He is cur­rent­ly fac­ing admin­is­tra­tive charges, which could lead to dis­missal, for alle­ga­tions that he gave false state­ments to inves­ti­ga­tors, The New York Times reports.

Vargas was also sued twice for ille­gal searches.

The NYPD Force Investigation Division and the attor­ney general’s office are inves­ti­gat­ing the police shoot­ing, which could take weeks or months to com­plete, the NYPD spokesper­son said.

“After the inves­ti­ga­tion is com­plete, the facts of the case will be pre­sent­ed to the first deputy commissioner’s use of force review board, which will eval­u­ate the evi­dence to deter­mine if the use of force applied in this case was jus­ti­fied and with­in depart­ment guide­lines,” he said.

Rebecca Kavanagh, a New York crim­i­nal defense attor­ney, told 1010 WINS the video does not show the offi­cers’ jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for using dead­ly force.

“Mr. Smith was run­ning away. Courts have repeat­ed­ly held that some­one run­ning away does not pose an immi­nent threat even if they have a gun,” Kavanagh said. “The police claim Mr. Smith fired a gun. That’s not reflect­ed on the body­cam video. Even if Mr. Smith fired a gun, he was not an immi­nent threat to police once he was run­ning away.”

(This sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed @ the Atlantablackstar​.com)