Family of man fatally shot by police in Brooklyn calls for release of bodycam footage
Community members pushed back against the police description of the shooting and called for the NYPD to release the bodycam footage.
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The family of a man shot by police in Brooklyn last week held a prayer vigil Saturday and demanded more answers about his death.
It happened after a 27-year-old woman called 911, telling dispatchers the man she knew was harassing her outside her door. She also told police she was in the process of getting a restraining order against him.
According to the NYPD, six officers from the 67th Precinct responded and spotted the man, later identified as Royston Bacchus, who matched her description. They say he took off running, and officers chased him about a block and a half onto Coventry Road.
Police say he had a loaded revolver in his hand during the chase and was told multiple times to drop it. They say he refused, and an officer fired once, hitting him in the chest.
Community members, including anti-violence organizations, as well as Council Member Chris Banks and Assemblywoman Monique Chandler-Waterman and State Senator Roxxane Persaud gathered to remember Bacchus and share stories about him, comforting his grieving family.
Many at the vigil, including Chandler-Waterman, knew the deceased personally, from his time as a football player at the nearby high school.
Leaders also called for more information from police on what lead up to the shooting, as well as demanding NYPD release the body-camera footage of this incident.
"This is not about demonizing this is about accountability, and so every action, every effort, every movement must bring clarity to what took place," Council Member Banks said.
"I do not understand why it happened this way, to my son you will not be forgotten," said father of the deceased Royston Bacchus Sr.
"I won't get the hugs I have from [him] all the time, and he is not here anymore, he was not a violent man, he was father," said Bacchus' aunt Afiah Caesar-Cornwall.
Banks also called for police to explain why Bacchus was not taken to nearby Brookdale hospital, and what caused the EMS delay that resulted in officers taking him by car to a different trauma center.
News 12 reached out to NYPD for comment, who directed us back to their initial release following the shooting.
