The family of a 25-year-old New Jersey woman who was fatally shot by a police officer in her apartment last month will on Friday review body camera video from the morning she was killed.
Victoria Lee was fatally shot in the chest on July 28 by a police officer responding to a mental health crisis call at her home in Fort Lee, across the Hudson River from New York. Her family has said that the killing occurred despite her brother twice calling 911 to request an ambulance to take Lee to the hospital and giving a dispatcher details about her mental state out of concern that police might unnecessarily escalate the situation. Lee was unarmed — holding only a plastic water jug — when she was shot, her family said in a statement.
“However, the unnecessarily aggressive approach taken by the police led to the tragic and devastating death of Victoria Lee,” they said.
Lee was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2017, her family said. Though it led her to withdraw early from college, they said she had been managing her condition through various activities including work, travel and music.
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Before her family called for help, she had been experiencing a “mentally unstable” period, exhibiting “odd behavior like rolling on the bed, briefly shouting twice, and lightly tapping her head against the wall,” her family said in a statement. The family had previously called the emergency line for mental assistance when Lee had similar episodes, they said.
On the day she was killed, Lee had become distressed after her brother told her that a 911 dispatcher said police were required to accompany the ambulance to the home and she picked up a small folding pocketknife that she typically used to open packages, her family said.
In light of recent police shootings, her brother called 911 a second time, her family said, to inform the dispatcher about Lee’s pocketknife and emphasize that it was small, and he asked that police not enter the apartment. They said he was told that police are required to respond to mental health calls.
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New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, whose office is investigating Lee’s killing as required by law, said in a statement that Fort Lee police officers responded to a home in an apartment complex at about 1:25 a.m., after a man called 911 to report that his sister was having a mental health crisis and needed to be taken to the hospital. The caller told the dispatcher that his sister was holding a knife, the statement said. When an officer arrived, he first spoke to Lee’s brother in a hallway outside of the apartment, the attorney general’s statement said, and then opened the door and saw Lee and another woman, who the Lee family has said was her mother.
They told the officer not to come in and shut the door, according to the statement. The family has said their dog barked aggressively at the officer when he opened the door and that Lee’s mother shut the door and went to put the dog in its cage. The attorney general’s statement said the officer knocked on the door, asked Lee and her mother to open it as other officers arrived and after they didn’t, officers breached the door.
As Lee approached the officers in the hallway, the attorney general’s statement said, officer Tony Pickens Jr. fired a single shot that struck her in the chest. Officers provided medical aid and Lee was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 1:58 a.m., the statement also said. It added that a knife was recovered at the scene but it did not say whether police had observed her holding it. The Fort Lee Police Department referred questions to the attorney general’s office. Pickens did not respond to a request for comment.
Lee’s family’s said in its statement that as police tried to break down the door, her mother held on to the door’s handle and repeatedly yelled, “Don’t come in!” The family said Lee had dropped the pocketknife before police entered the home. She became unnerved by the banging on the door, they said, so she picked up a five-gallon bottle of water “and clutched it in her hand non-threateningly.” When the door opened, the family said, a shot was fired almost immediately.
The family declined requests for interviews and referred NBC News to its attorney to provide additional comment on its behalf.
Lee’s family said it had made mental health calls to 911 in the past and that “the 911 responders had always been understanding of her fragile mental state; both family and 911 responders cooperated together to facilitate de-escalating the situation and transporting Victoria to the hospital.” Lee, the family said, was not and had never been violent, including during previous mental health episodes.
Given previous interactions with the 911 responders, the Lee family said it completely trusted and followed the police officers’ instructions on July 28.
At a news conference Tuesday, Henry Sukjin Cho, the family’s attorney, said Lee was harmless.
“Victoria was a beloved individual with a bright future and her loss is immeasurable,” Cho said. “The Lee family is committed to seeking justice and ensuring the full truth of this tragic event is revealed."
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