People lit candles, linked arms and prayed for the soul of 52-year-old Andrew Jerome Washington, who was shot and killed by Jersey City police while he was suffering a mental health crisis on Sunday after his family called Jersey City Medical Center’s intervention hotline for help. They were among about 200 mourners who attended a vigil Tuesday evening in front of Washington’s home.
“We were trying to work with the system, how they told us. And it didn’t work. And now Drew is not with us. We are so saddened,” his aunt Doris Ervin told the crowd. She said Washington was a loving person, but explained the family struggled with his mental health episodes.
Ervin said she watched the tragedy unfold Sunday; she said that after paramedics summoned police, the family pleaded with officers not to use lethal force. Police said that Washington lunged at them with a knife.
“And they lied to us,” Ervin said, “telling us they were just trying to defuse the problem … When they took him out, they didn’t even tell us he was shot! They said, ‘Oh, just wait. We have a report for you guys to do.'”
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who viewed police body-camera videos, said officers acted appropriately, according to protocol. Advocates question that, noting that one officer carried a taser but the other drew his gun. Wesley Hall, a cousin of Washington, said, “One officer thought lethal force was justifiable and the other didn’t, or he wouldn’t have tased him. It represents an inconsistency. And it represents an inconsistency the mayor thinks we are too stupid to pick up on.”
Advocates pointed to the case of Najee Seabrooks, the Paterson man who was shot and killed by police during a similar mental health breakdown in March. They called for reforms to minimize police involvement in mental health crises. The state attorney general’s office has not yet announced if or when body-cam footage in Sunday’s shooting will be released.
