Video released in police shooting of man on New Jersey highway
The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office released about a dozen video and audio recordings on Monday related to the fatal police shooting of a man on a state highway during Memorial Day weekend.
Video footage showed that a New Jersey state trooper fired his handgun six times, killing Maurice Gordon — a 28-year-old, unarmed black man — after he was stopped on the Garden State Parkway on May 23 and apparently attempted to get into the officer’s car.
The state attorney general’s office also identified the officer involved in the shooting as Sgt. Randall Wetzel for the first time in its Monday release.
The recordings follow five episodes involving Gordon over a 30-hour period, including a 911 call placed by one of his friends on the morning of May 22 and interactions with Gordon and police in Brick, Waretown, Stafford, and Bass River, N.J., on the morning of May 23.
The shooting remains under investigation, the release said. Released documents note Gordon was unarmed.
The footage shows Wetzel, who is white, pulling Gordon over at about 6:30 a.m. and telling him he was stopped for allegedly going over the speed limit at 110 miles per hour.
Gordon had been pulled over about 15 minutes earlier for allegedly going 101 miles per hour, and before that, officers helped him contact a tow truck after his vehicle ran out of gas.
Wetzel can be heard telling Gordon that pulling over to the left side of the road was not a safe spot, but Gordon responded that his car would not start. The trooper offered for Gordon to wait in his police car for the tow truck, saying he had to pat Gordon down first.
Wetzel can be heard asking Gordon where he is going. Gordon’s answers are not audible, but the trooper repeated that he said he was heading to buy a new car and to Atlantic City, N.J.
After about 21 minutes of waiting, Gordon appears to leave the vehicle shortly after Wetzel offers to give him a mask. Off camera, the trooper can be heard using an expletive and ordering Gordon to get back in the car.
The footage appears to show Gordon walking to the driver’s side of the police vehicle attempting to enter as Wetzel yells, “Get out of the car!”
Wetzel calls for another unit as the confrontation continues off camera before gunfire can be heard. When another officer arrived, Wetzel relayed what happened and said he fired pepper spray at him, which was not visible in the video.
“He was in my car, went to give him a mask,” Wetzel said. “He tried getting out of my car. We got in a fight on the side of the road. He tried running into my car. I got him out, sprayed him. We got in a fight again. He ran away from me, tried to hop in my trooper car, grab my gun. We were fighting with my gun and I shot him. He was already cuffed.”
Before the incident, on the morning of May 22, Gordon’s friend placed a 911 call describing Gordon as distraught when he left his friend’s house.
The family’s attorney, William Wagstaff, said in a statement obtained by The Hill that the family learned of the video's release by texts from friends while planning Gordon's funeral. He said the family had been told he would receive the recordings at least two days prior to their release but instead were forwarded "right before their public release."
He said the office made an “unreasonable request” on short notice to travel to Whippany, N.J., to view the video, according to USA Today.
“ ‘Black lives matter,’ is nothing more than cruel hypocrisy unless reified by deed," Wagstaff said in a statement. "I do not believe the Attorney General’s Office would be painting itself as agnostic regarding the shooter’s misconduct, while being subtly partisan in their reveal, if it was the Attorney General’s unarmed son who lay dead."
A spokeswoman for the attorney general's office told The Hill that the Office of Program Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) was required to release the footage after its initial investigation was complete.
The spokeswoman said in a statement that Wagstaff was informed on Sunday that the footage would be released on Monday, and OPIA invited Gordon's family to view it in its offices. After Wagstaff declined, officials gave the attorney a link to the footage, so they "had the opportunity to watch the footage privately before its public release," which was 3 p.m. Monday, the spokeswoman added.
The footage was released at the same time as many across the country are protesting police brutality and racial injustice in reaction to the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in Minneapolis police custody.
— This report was updated at 2:11 p.m.
Source: https://thehill.com