The state attorney general’s office is declining to prosecute an NYPD officer who shot and killed a man in Far Rockaway last year.
Attorney General Letitia James said Friday her office would not be able to prove in court that officer James Cameron broke the law when he killed Quayshawn Samuel during a foot pursuit, because Cameron thought the man was going to shoot him. New York law allows someone to use deadly force if they believe their life is in imminent danger.
Cameron is assigned to 101st Precinct’s Neighborhood Safety Team, a controversial unit launched after Mayor Eric Adams took office as part of his approach to crack down on a rise in gun violence during the pandemic. The units proactively search for crime and firearms in areas with high rates of violence, instead of responding to 911 calls.
“A prosecutor would not be able to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Cameron’s use of deadly force against Mr. Samuel was justified under New York law and will not seek charges in this case,” investigators wrote in a report released Friday explaining their decision.
An attorney representing Samuel’s family called the investigation “incomplete” and said the AG’s office relied too much on the accounts of police, instead of speaking with more witnesses who watched what happened.
“Unfortunately, we can’t ask Quayshawn what happened,” Ilya Novofastovsky said in an interview.
According to the AG’s Office of Special Investigation, which reviews all killings by law enforcement and deaths in custody in the state, police were monitoring surveillance footage of an apartment building in Far Rockaway when they noticed a group of men milling around the lobby and decided to send officers from the 101st Precinct’s Neighborhood Safety Team to investigate “potential criminal activity.”
As officers James Cameron and Ryan Nohilly were approaching the back doors of the building, according to the AG’s office, Samuel ran out of the building. Video published by the AG’s office shows the officers chasing after him.
Cameron told investigators he believed Samuel was holding a gun, because he seemed to be holding his waist. As the officer chased Samuel, surveillance footage shows, Cameron dropped his radio and body camera. He said he didn’t stop to pick them up, because he didn’t want to lose sight of Samuel.
Cameron said he unholstered his gun and told Samuel to stop running. When Samuel kept going, Cameron said, he reholstered his gun to jump a fence and then saw Samuel run across the street and get hit by a car. Samuel stumbled a bit but got back up, Cameron said.
As Cameron caught up to Samuel, he said he saw a gun in the man’s right hand and told him to drop it. Cameron got on top of Samuel, and the two struggled on the ground. At one point, according to Cameron, Samuel told the officer he had dropped the gun, but Cameron said he still saw the firearm in Samuel’s hand. The officer told investigators he thought Samuel was raising the gun to shoot him.
Cameron then fired two shots, striking Samuel in the chest and leg. Nohilly ran up moments later and can be heard on body camera footage telling his partner to cuff Samuel. Samuel, lying on the ground between cars, says, “I’m shot.”
According to the AG’s office, Cameron told the other officer, “He wouldn’t drop the gun. I told him multiple times to drop the gun.” Police recovered a Smith & Wesson pistol next to Samuel’s left hand, the report states.
Police dressed Samuel’s chest wound and put a tourniquet on his leg. An ambulance took him to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later. The medical examiner’s office determined Samuel died by homicide of a gunshot wound to his torso.
Officer was assigned to Neighborhood Safety Team
Novofastovsky said the report leaves many questions unanswered. He noted Cameron told investigators he saw a gun in Samuel’s right hand, while police later recovered a pistol next to his left hand. He said Samuel was wearing sweatpants and wondered how he could have kept a gun in his waistband while running. The attorney also pointed out that Samuel’s DNA wasn’t found on the gun.
The city medical examiner’s office couldn’t identify any fingerprints on the pistol found beside Samuel’s body, according to the AG’s report. DNA testing found multiple contributors, but Samuel was not one of them. A criminalist told investigators that could be because the gun was on the ground and several officers handled the gun without gloves.
“There’s a million small issues,” Novofastovsky said.
The Samuel family’s attorney questioned why police decided to go to the apartment building in the first place, and why they felt the need to chase Samuel once he started running. He said it’s common for people in the neighborhood to feel afraid when police show up.
“We know that hanging out in the lobby of a building is not worthy of death at the hands of the law,” Novofastovsky said.
Police reform advocates have criticized the Neighborhood Safety Teams, which resemble the anti-crime units the NYPD disbanded after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Those units were disbanded because members were connected to a disproportionate number of complaints and violent incidents. A report earlier this year found officers assigned to Neighborhood Safety Teams were regularly conducting stop and frisks without legal justification.
Throughout the department, NYPD officers discharged their firearms in 62 incidents last year — 40 during what police call “adversarial conflicts,” according to the NYPD’s annual use of force report. Two officers were killed and four injured during “adversarial conflicts,” while 28 people pursued by police were shot and 13 died.
The NYPD, the police union and the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
