An NYPD oversight board voted to approve a number of misconduct charges against two officers who used a Taser on and fatally shot 19-year-old Win Rozario in front of his brother and mother at their Queens home in 2024, a board spokesperson said.
The Civilian Complaint Review Board substantiated eight counts – four against each officer – including excessive force and abuse of authority, according to an agency spokesperson and an advocacy group representing the teen's family.
The officers, Salvatore Alongi and Matthew Cianfrocco, may now face an administrative trial or other discipline by the department because of the board ruling. The police commissioner will have the final say in whether the officers receive punishment.
Rozario’s mother, Notan Eva Costa, said in a statement that the CCRB’s decision offers some relief even as she remains devastated by her son’s killing.
“I still feel the trauma of Alongi and Cianfrocco murdering Win in front of me, and almost killing me and my other son too. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss my son. My heart is still broken,” Costa said.
Body-camera footage of the incident shows the officers entering Rozario’s Ozone Park apartment, climbing a flight of stairs and approaching him in the kitchen, where he was standing with Costa. Rozario, who was in the midst of a mental health episode, then pulled a pair of scissors from a kitchen drawer and walked toward the officers, prompting Alongi to fire at him with a Taser, the video shows.
Costa was able to pull the scissors away from her son, but he picked them back up seconds later, the video shows. Cianfrocco then fired one shot, hitting Rozario in the arm.
Costa and her other son then got in between the officers and Rozario as they pleaded for the officers not to shoot him, the video shows. Seconds later, Cianfrocco fired several more shots, hitting Rozario in the chest, according to the video.
Patrick Hendry, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, which represents the officers, condemned the board’s ruling and said the board overruled the findings of its investigators, who determined the police officers’ actions were within department guidelines.
“This board is tainted by too many members who take their marching orders from extreme anti-police activists, and the board’s leadership simply doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing,” Hendry said in a statement.
CCRB spokesperson Dakota Gardner defended the board’s decision.
“The Board takes its responsibility to New Yorkers seriously, rigorously reviewing all the gathered evidence and weighing all factors in making its determination. All Agency staff work in support of the Board’s deliberations, which are the formal disciplinary recommendation by the CCRB,” Gardner said in an email.
NYPD spokesperson Brad Weekes said the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division is still investigating the matter.
