On The Anniversary of MLK’s Death, Another Black Man Killed by Police

On the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death, another black man was shot in Brooklyn by the police force.

On Wednesday, a black man who was mentally ill was shot to death in Brooklyn by New York City police officers. The officers had believed that the man was pointing a gun at them, which after investigation, turned out to be a metal pipe with a knob instead.

The shooting took place in the neighborhood of Crown Heights and the man was no stranger to the local police force either. He had been formerly classified as emotionally disturbed and it was unclear whether the police at the scene were aware of this record.

The incident began with a few 911 calls to the police force about a threatening man with a silver gun in Crown Heights and five officers were sent to aid the situation. The police soon located the man reported at the corner of Montgomery Street and Utica Avenue and the target took up a “two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at the approaching officers” according to Terence A. Monahan, the chief of the department of Crown Heights.

The man shot was Saheed Vassel, age 34 and his father, Eric Vassel, stated during an interview that his son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had frequented local hospitals in recent years. He had also been the target of police encounters in the past. Young Vassel has a 15-year-old son and worked as a welder in the neighborhood. Mr. Vassel’s father denied the accusation of his son holding a gun and said that he would only “just walk around the neighborhood and help people.”

Local residents also identified Mr. Vassel to be widely known to be mentally ill. According to the locals, he loved dancing and often picked up random things from the street and played with them, including cigarette lighters, empty bottles and many other objects. This pipe was very likely to be a collection from the streets as well, which led to his ultimate tragic death.

John Fuller, 59, another local who was well acquainted with Mr. Vassel, expressed the sentiment that the police officers should have recognized or been aware of his mental conditions before shooting him to death. He stated that “every cop in this neighborhood knows him”, which was a statement corroborated and confirmed by the local police force, who agreed that he had been arrested before and was recorded on file as emotionally unstable.

By looking at the surveillance videos released by the police, we do observe Mr. Vassel on the scene with his arm stretched out, holding something in his arms. While the police officers have claimed that they had assumed the object to be a gun, a witness had accused of the police of immediately firing at the man upon their arrival without trying to hold a conversation or ask about his mental state.

This incident tragically fell on the same day with the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination and groups have protested with Black Lives Matter signs. Just three weeks ago a black man was brutally killed by the police, and he too was suspected of holding a gun to the police which turned out to be a cellphone.

Local residents had described him as “harmless”, “a very willing guy, a very nice guy, a good guy.”

This incident was just one of the many police shootings of black men in the past year and the local police have not yet responded to the protests.