The police have released body cam footage of the fatal shooting leading to the death of a 25-year-old Korean-American woman in Fort Lee, New Jersey on July 28.
The footages obtained by the Korea Daily were released after a demonstration to the family and select organizations earlier on August 16. Four of the officer’s body cam videos, one Taser video, and two 911 call transcripts were released. “I think the prosecution was confident and wanted to release it quickly,” said one official who requested anonymity.
In the first call to 911, Lee’s older brother, Chris explains that his sister is mentally ill and wants to be taken to the hospital, as the state authorities originally stated. In the second call, he asked to cancel the transportation request because he did not want an officer to come. However, he was told that officers had already been dispatched.
Following his mother’s instructions, he explained that Lee was holding a weapon. To the officer’s detailed question about the weapon, he explained that she was “holding” a knife and that the weapon was a “fold” knife. The officer asked him twice if he had made any threats and informed him that they needed more confirmation because Lee was in possession of a weapon. He then confirmed that Lee was in the bedroom.
The conflicting accounts from the family and the police are whether Lee possessed a weapon and threatened the officer. In the video, during the first confrontation, Lee tells the officer using profanity not to come to her. Contrary to the family’s account, Chris, who appeared after the door was opened, is the first to confront the officer. The officer then asks him if he is mentally ill, and he confirms that it is her sister.
The officer confronts the mother and daughter, assures them he won’t hurt them, and continues to try to talk them down, but Lee refuses to stop talking as the dog in her mother’s arms barks. Additional police backup arrives, and as a confrontation ensues, the officers tell Lee’s brother to stay in the back.
The mother and daughter close the door to keep the officers out, but the altercation continues with Lee’s verbal threat to officers. The officer behind them says, “We don’t want to shoot you, We want to talk to you,” but the door doesn’t open.
Eventually, the officer warned to break the door open and then physically opened it. The police tell Lee to back off and drop her weapon repeatedly. Lee said, “Go ahead, I’m going to stab you in the f–ing neck,” according to New Jersey Attorney General Mattew Platkin. The officers responded by distinguishing between “lethal” and “less lethal” missions.
The weapon is blurred in the body cam, but according to the Lee family’s lawyer Sukjin Cho’s account of the original video, Lee confronted the officers after the door was opened, holding the weapon in her left hand and a bottle of water in her right. Her mother allegedly held her arm while she held the weapon. The prosecutors have kept the position that Lee was armed with the weapon, exited the door, and approached the officer in the hallway, to which the officer responded.
The body cam shows the officer firing, Lee falling to the ground, and the officer cursing. The officer pulls Victoria to his feet, asks her if she’s okay, and checks her for gunshot wounds.
Victoria curses and her mother tries to reassure her. The video ends with the officer ripping a kitchen towel from inside the house.
The family was represented by the family’s lawyer Sukjin Cho, a criminal defense attorney, and a former FBI expert. Cho questioned the poor quality of the Taser video and questioned the possibility of technical manipulation, but the other two disagreed. Cho told the mother that he would double-check the footage to make sure it was accurate. He also claimed that an officer at the scene, who was believed to be of Korean descent, was tasked with a “lethal” mission, which is also questionable.
After viewing the video, Black Lives Matter organizer Jerry Thomas told the Korea Daily, “Victoria should be alive today,” and reiterated his previous stance that “what she needed at that moment was help for the mentally ill, not death by police.”
AAPI New Jersey and other civil rights groups plan to hold a rally after August 19 to demand an explanation of the officer’s protocol, according to Sungwon Kim, manager of the Minkwon Center.
BY MINHYE KANG, HOONSIK WOO [kang.minhye@koreadailyny.com]
