Akm Shehabuddin Kisslu: A 19-year-old teen in Queens Shot and killed by NYPD officers after he had called 911 while experiencing a mental-health crisis on Wednesday. Officials say that Win Rozario waved a pair of scissors at the officers who responded to the scene and approached them, prompting them to fire their weapons. However, family members of Rozario have disputed the department’s official account of events.
The victim’s 17-year-old brother Utsho Rozario said their mother was holding his brother the entire time, “As my mother was still hugging him, they shot him with the Taser,”. “So they shot him with the Tasers, and my brother didn’t really go down. So one of the cops pulled out a gun and shot him as my mother still hugging him.”
The Rozario family immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh in 2014. Win was a graduate from John Adams High School and had dreams of joining the military according to the family.
“We want justice. My son was innocent. My son had a little mental problem, but the police weren’t listening to us,” Francis Rozario, the victim’s father told reporters.
NYPD chief of patrol John Chell told reporters during a press conference after the shooting, that two officers arrived on the scene in Ozone Park, Queens, at 1:40 p.m. after receiving a 911 call from a man in “mental distress.” He said the officers entered the second-floor apartment and that the scene became “hectic, chaotic, and dangerous.”
According to John Chell, as the officers tried to take the man who made the call, 19-year-old Win Rozario, into custody, he pulled a pair of scissors out of a nearby drawer and began to approach them. The two officers then fired their Tasers, striking him. Rozario’s mother went over to aid her son and knocked the Tasers’ charges off his body. “At this point, the male picked up the scissors again, came at our officers. They had no choice but to defend themselves, discharging their firearms,” Chell said.
Rozario was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Chell said the incident was captured on body-worn cameras but did not indicate if that footage would be released. The department later shared a photo of the pair of scissors that Rozario is alleged to have held.
However, Francis Rozario spoke publicly later on Wednesday for the first time since police body camera footage was released showing officers fatally shoot Rozario in front of his mother and brother.
Rozario had called 911 himself to say he was experiencing a mental health crisis. When officers arrived, video shows Rozario ran at them while holding a pair of scissors. The two officers used their Tasers on him multiple times, but eventually shot and killed him.
