NJ AG: Recordings of fatal police shooting of Poughkeepsie man to be released this week
BASS RIVER — Recordings of an incident in which a 28-year-old Poughkeepsie man was shot and killed by a New Jersey State Police trooper last month will be released this week.
That's according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, which said it has substantially completed its investigation into the shooting Sunday night.
Earlier in the day, the office said the information would be released by the end of the week in the May 23 shooting death of Maurice Gordon. The driver was pulled over by state police along the Garden State Parkway in Bass River that morning and was shot and killed by the state trooper.
No further information has been released, and on Saturday Gordon’s attorney, William O. Wagstaff, III, said his family was demanding more information about his death over the Memorial Day weekend. The attorney said Gordon, a black man, was unarmed.
“Our team of independent investigators has been working hard to complete the initial investigation into the shooting death of Maurice Gordon as quickly as possible. That initial investigation is now complete, and we are in a position to publicly release the audio and video recordings of the incident,” Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement Sunday night.
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“We have reached out to Mr. Gordon’s family to provide them an opportunity to privately view the footage before its public release.”
The office said Monday while it is ready to release the recordings the investigation in still ongoing.
Previously, the office had only released information identifying Gordon as the victim.
Gordon was studying chemistry at Dutchess Community College and worked as an Uber driver. It is not known yet what he was doing in South Jersey on May 23, Wagstaff said, noting it was possible he could have had an Uber fare.
Gordon’s mother, who lives in the United Kingdom, flew into New York on Thursday looking for answers, Wagstaff said.
On Sunday night, state senators Troy Singleton and Nia Gill also called for a “thorough and transparent” review of the shooting.
Earlier in the week, Grewal said officials understood the importance of releasing information, including video footage, and that by not doing so it could “breed mistrust.”
Wagstaff said Saturday after seeing only a limited portion of police video of the incident on Monday, he has more questions than answers.
“As an initial matter, when you have family that is grieving, have a son that is killed unexpectedly by a police officer, you want to know the name of the killer, whether (Gordon) died on side of the road, in ambulance or at the hospital, whether there were first aid efforts. Things that are reasonable,” Wagstaff said in a phone interview.
“It just doesn’t pass the smell test when you say you’re not releasing that information,” he added.
According to Wagstaff, Gordon was unarmed when he was shot by a white trooper multiple times. The attorney said the state trooper handcuffed Gordon after shooting him.
Neither the state police nor the attorney general’s office has released any details to confirm Wagstaff’s statements as the investigation continues. The state police, according to the law on police-involved shooting, has turned the investigation over to the AG’s office.
“Because the investigation is ongoing, we are not in a position to release additional information,” the office said in a statement Sunday afternoon. “Our policy is to presumptively release audio and video recordings of the incident once the initial investigation is substantially complete, typically within 20 days.
“We intend to meet that deadline in this case. We are working quickly to finalize our initial investigation, and we anticipate publicly releasing all footage of the incident before the end of this week.”
The incident is being investigated by the attorney general’s Integrity Bureau within the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability and the New Jersey State Police Major Crime Bureau.
A 2019 law requires the Attorney General’s Office to investigate deaths that occur during an encounter with a law enforcement officer acting in the officer’s official capacity or while the decedent is in custody.
On Tuesday, Grewal called officer-involved shootings and those that happen in police custody some of “the most serious investigations” law enforcement undertakes.
“Those are investigations, like every investigation, that we have to get right,” he said at a news conference. “Getting the investigation right means maintaining the integrity of that investigation.”
He said the probe includes interviewing witnesses, reviewing footage, chasing down leads and collecting evidence without outside influence. The AG said releasing too much information too soon could impact that investigation.