The police shooting death Wednesday of Queens resident Win Rozaro has reignited calls from advocates to bar the NYPD from responding to mental health crises — and for the officers involved in the deadly incident to be fired.
Rozaro himself had called 911 for help on March 27 while experiencing his mental health crisis, prompting a response to his home on 103rd Street in Ozone Park from the 102nd Precinct. Within minutes, he was dead, having been Tased and then fatally shot when he apparently charged at the officers with a pair of scissors.
Now, Rozaro’s family and advocacy groups are demanding justice and answers as to how the teenager’s cry for help turned into his demise.
From the NYPD perspective, the officers had no choice. After cops initially subdued Rozaro with Tasers after he charged at them, he became revived after his mother knocked the Taser prods away from him — prompting Rozaro to pick up the scissors and charge at the officers a second and final time.
“The mother, being a mother, came to aid her son. By doing so, she accidentally knocked the tasers out of his body,” Chief of Patrol John Chell said Wednesday. “At this point, the male picked up the scissors again, came at our officers. They had no choice but to defend themselves, discharging their firearms.”
However, Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) said this was no excuse. Calling the killing senseless and stating that the NYPD should have no place responding to mental health issues.
“This young person called the police for help, and, like so many others before him, died at the hands of officers who needlessly and violently escalated the situation,” Executive Director of the Justice Committee Loyda Colon said. “His mother should not have had to watch him die. And while there can never be justice for the killing of this young person, there can be accountability. We can prevent future loss of life at the hands of the NYPD.”
Colon also demanded that the NYPD publicly release the names of the officers involved in the shooting, and their firing from the service. Colon also invoked the name of Kawaski Trawick who suffered a similar fate in 2019; Trawick was tasered, then fatally shot by police during a mental health incident in the Bronx in 2019.
Meanwhile, others also spoke out on Wednesday’s deadly shooting. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams took to X to call for a change.
“19 y/o Win Rozario calls for assistance for a mental health crisis and ends up shot to death in his home. And another family is needlessly mourning. This has been an extremely difficult few days. What’s clear (or should be to those serious about safety) is that what we’re collectively doing isn’t working and is putting everyone in harms way. Period,” Williams wrote.
Queens Councilmember Lynn Schulman likewise released a statement.
“Today, my constituent, 19-year-old Win Rozaro made a call for help and it cost him his life. Our system failed him. Win called 911 in mental distress, but instead of receiving the help he needed, he was shot and killed at his home by police after an altercation. Instead of a police response, mental health professionals should have been sent to him. Win’s story is far too common,” part of the statement read.
The shooting occurred less than two days after the NYPD lost one of their own in the line of duty. Police Officer Jonathan Diller was shot and killed in a confrontation with an armed suspect in Far Rockaway. One suspect has been charged in the case; another perpetrator, whom police shot in the exchange, remains hospitalized with charges pending.
