Fort Lee Police Release Video of Victoria Lee’s Shooting
Police bodycam video shows the fatal encounter between Victoria Lee and police officers in Fort Lee in July 2024.
On Friday afternoon, the state attorney general’s office released body camera footage and 911 calls from the night a Fort Lee police officer shot and killed 25-year-old Victoria Lee last month, an incident that sparked demonstrations and demands for answers.
The released audio recording contains two 911 calls made by Lee’s brother early in the morning of July 28, in which he reported that his sister was having a mental health crisis. Towards the end of the first call, the dispatcher tells him that an ambulance and police officers were being sent.
The brother says that “just an ambulance” would suffice, but the dispatcher tells him that officers need to be sent for the safety of emergency personnel. He then calls back and asks to cancel the call before the dispatcher tells him that calls due to mental health issues cannot be canceled and officers will arrive shortly. During the second call, the brother told the dispatcher that his sister was holding a knife.
Tear down: Fort Lee Police Bodycam Footage of Shootings Analyzed Minute by Minute
Fort Lee police arrive
The video footage shows a Fort Lee police officer approaching Lee’s apartment. When he arrives at the Lee family’s door, he encounters a man, Lee’s brother, walking out of the apartment into the hallway.
“Hey, is that you?” the officer asks the brother, trying to figure out who is suffering from a mental crisis.
The brother tells the policeman that it is his sister, while the policeman pushes the brother aside.
At that moment, the door opens and Lee and another woman, her mother, are standing inside. One of them is holding a barking dog. The women tell the officer not to come in and close the door.
The officer tells the women to open the door and asks the brother if he has the key. At that moment, several more officers come down the hall.
“I’m going to kick the door down,” the policeman shouts at the women.
One of the women replies, “Go on, I’m going to stab you in the damn neck.”
The officers then ask the brother to take a few steps down the hallway.
“Who wants to be less lethal, who wants to be lethal?” one of the officers asks calmly. Moments later, one of the officers begins to break down the door with his body weight.
Related: Family and advocacy groups demand justice for Victoria Lee, killed by Fort Lee police
When the door opens, Lee and her mother are standing in the doorway. Lee is holding a plastic water jug.
The officers yell at her to “drop the knife” and she begins to walk toward them in the hallway.
A shot is fired and Lee falls to the ground as water sprays from the jug she is holding in her right hand. The officers pull Lee into the hallway and apparently begin to give her medical aid. An officer calls for towels. In several videos, an officer can be seen throwing a pocket knife from the apartment into the hallway.
The attorney general has identified Fort Lee officer Tony Pickens Jr. as the police officer who shot and killed Lee.
Reactions from community leaders
Following the release of the footage, local organizations and activists immediately criticized the law enforcement response.
“Victoria Lee should be alive today,” said a joint statement from AAPI New Jersey, the Korean American Association of New Jersey, the Korean Community Center in Tenafly and the MinKwon Center for Community Action in New York.
“The footage released by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office confirms what the Lee family has already shared with the world: that Fort Lee police shot and killed Victoria within minutes while her mother watched helplessly,” the statement said. “Words cannot describe our grief or anger.”
Zellie Thomas, an elementary school teacher in Paterson and an active member of Black Lives Matter Paterson, said Lee would still be alive if officers had acted differently.
“Telling someone in an agitated mental health crisis that you ‘don’t want to shoot them’ is not de-escalation, it’s the opposite. What Victoria needed in that moment was a non-police response to a mental health emergency call. Instead, she was dragged out of her apartment by her legs after being fatally shot.”
Corey Teague, a public affairs consultant in Paterson, said while it was “not good” of Lee to threaten officers through the door, her death could have been prevented if the necessary mental health experts had been present to intervene.
“It’s so unfortunate because these situations could be avoided with the right personnel,” Teague said. “If a psychologist had been on site to help her out of her state, she would probably be in a mental institution today.”
The joint statement from the Asian organizations called on the Attorney General’s Office to fully investigate the incident and hold those responsible to account, demanded a “thorough review” of Fort Lee police’s practices and urged New Jersey to invest more in “culturally competent mental health services” rather than relying on law enforcement’s actions.
“For many reasons, it can be difficult for Asian Americans to access mental health support,” the statement said. “We are deeply concerned about the impact of this incident and other devastating incidents on Asian Americans’ willingness to seek medical care when they need it.”
“The actions of the Fort Lee Police Department as seen in the body camera footage are, frankly, abhorrent,” said Yannick Wood, director of the Criminal Justice Reform Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. “It couldn’t be clearer that law enforcement, given their focus on the use of force, are the wrong people to help someone in mental health distress who desperately needs help.”
In a lengthy statement, Wood continued, “Unfortunately, this type of militarized response to a mental health crisis is part of a devastating pattern in New Jersey, as the loved ones of Najee Seabrooks, Jameek Lowery, Andrew Washington and Major Gulia Dale could tell you. Often the victims are people of color.”
According to an accompanying statement from the state Attorney General’s Office, the encounter is currently being investigated by the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability.
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