By Julia Tong
Community members expressed outrage after viewing the police bodycam footage of the police shooting of Victoria Lee.
Following pressure from family, advocates, and AAPI community groups, the New Jersey Attorney General’s office released the bodycam footage Friday from the police shooting of 25-year-old Korean American. Warning: Some viewers may find the video disturbing.
Lee was experiencing a mental health crisis when her family called 911 for an ambulance. Footage shows that police shot her within minutes of arrival at her door.
“I was completely sickened and outraged by the disturbing actions of the Fort Lee police,” Manjusha Kulkarni, Executive Director of AAPI Equity Alliance and co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, said in response to the footage to AsAmNews
“There’s no question that Victoria should be alive today, and the footage really confirms our worst fears that the police killing of Victoria was unjust and unwarranted,” she adds.
“[The police] chose to go lethal without trying to deescalate this.”
On July 28th, a 911 call was made from the Lee household for an ambulance to bring Lee to a medical facility. The police were dispatched as well, despite repeated requests from the family member not to send law enforcement.
On the call, family members also reported that Lee had been holding a small, foldable knife. Body camera footage shows that, on arrival, responding officers immediately demanded to know who had the knife. An already distressed Lee can be heard becoming increasingly agitated as the officers threatened to break down the door and discussed whether to use lethal or less-lethal weaponry upon entering.
Within three minutes of arriving at the Lee home, Officer Tony Pickens, Jr. broke open the door and immediately shot Lee once. Lee was still in the doorway, holding a plastic water jug; her family maintains she was not holding a knife at the time.
Community advocates from AAPI NJ and Stop AAPI Hate say that the released footage shows an unnecessary use of lethal force by responding officers. For instance, responding officers made no attempts at de-escalation or crisis management at the Lee residence, even when the family asked the police to stand down.
Officers also immediately resorted to using lethal force over nonlethal alternatives– even as family members stressed that Lee was not posing any threat. They also made efforts to keep her away from the police: Her mother locked the door and put her body in front of her daughter, while her brother stayed outside and tried to ask cops to stand down
“There was no threat. [Lee] was clearly not any danger to anyone inside. Her mother was trying to protect her, trying to put herself between the police and her daughter,” said Amber Reed, co-executive director of AAPI NJ, during an interview with AsAmNews.
“I just don’t know how the police came to the conclusion that they needed to bring down that door and have their weapons drawn.”
Lee is the latest AAPI youth to be killed by police in the midst of a mental health crisis. There have been several notable killings in 2024 alone. Among them are 16-year-old Easter Leafa, who was killed by Anchorage police on August 13th; 40-year-old Yong Yang, who was shot by Los Angeles Police Department officers; and 19-year-old Win Rosario, who was killed by the New York Police Department while holding a pair of scissors in March.
These killings reflect a broader trend: Studies have shown that people in mental health crisis are 16 times more likely to be killed by police, who often lack the training to deescalate or treat mental health crises without force.
The police-first response to mental health is a key reason why these shooting deaths continue to happen, says Reed.
“As long as that’s our approach to responding to mental health crises, it’s going to be dangerous, especially for people of color,” says Reed.
“It’s urgent to move quickly and invest more.”
In response to Lee’s death, Stop AAPI Hate and AAPI NJ launched a call to action demanding transparency from the Fort Lee police, an investigation into Lee’s death, and greater investment into mental healthcare.
Their first demand is a transparent investigation into Lee’s killing, and accountability for the officers involved. Though the bodycam footage has been released, family and community members say they have received little to no information from the Fort Lee Police Department. It is unclear whether the officer who shot Lee is still on active duty.
And questions still linger around officers’ reactions to the shooting itself. Per AAPI NJ, Lee was separated from her family after being shot, as her brother and mother were taken to the station for questioning; it is unclear what medical care Lee received.
However, advocates stress, structural changes are necessary to ensure that a tragedy like Lee’s shooting will not happen again, such as an overhaul of law enforcement’s policies on responding to mental health crises, and mental health treatment across the country.
One immediate change, Kulkarni says, is that police should not be called to mental health emergencies, since they are not adequately trained to respond to them. Instead, responders such as a mental health crisis worker and EMT, should be the first to arrive at a scene.
Kulkarni says that many of these programs have been implemented successfully already. Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets (CAHOOTS) in Oregon, for instance, is a community-based mental health treatment service that replaces police as the initial responders to emergency situations.
And New Jersey itself has the ARRIVE Together program. Per the New Jersey AG, the program recognized that police are expected to “undertake roles they never expected when choosing to serve” – such as responding to mental health crises – and, subsequently, “it should come as no surprise that negative outcomes are possible, even likely.” (Per advocates, it is unclear why this program was not in place when Lee was shot.)
Another policy advocates are pushing for is the implementation of the Seabrooks-Washington Community-Lead Crisis Response Act. Named after Najee Seabrooks and Andrew Washington, who were shot by New Jersey police during mental health crises, the law will institute a Community Crisis Response Team in an effort to minimize police killings. The law was signed into law in January, but has yet to be rolled out.
“We know that there are programs across the country that work, and so it’s high time to invest in similar programs, because this needs to change,” she said.
Another important change is broader, “massive” investments in mental healthcare, says Chang and Reed – especially for AAPI people, who have historically struggled with seeking help for mental illnesses. This includes investments into community-based responses that are culturally competent and in-language.
This is especially important now, says Reed, who worries that the shooting has undermined the local AAPI community’s confidence in mental health treatment and emergency services.
‘“It was already very difficult to access mental health care as an Asian American, and this incident is only going to make it even harder for people to access care, given what they’ve seen play out here,” said Reed. “So it’s urgent to move quickly and invest more.”
The Asian American community in New Jersey has activated after the shooting: In addition to AAPI NJ and Stop AAPI Hate, organizations such as the Korean American Association, the Korean Community Center, and the MinKwon Center for Community Action have all demanded justice for Lee and called on officials to ensure that those in need of mental health services can access that care safely.
But still, as the community reels from Lee’s shooting, this trust will be difficult to rebuild.
“This is a family that was trying to get help for their loved ones during a mental health crisis and then saw her shot to death in front of them by the police who should have been helping her,” Reed said.
“There’s just a lot of bafflement and fear because it doesn’t feel safe when you can be shot to death in the entryway of your own home.”
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