Police officers who fatally shot a man they said was wielding a piece of pipe like a gun on a Brooklyn street last year will not be charged.
State Attorney General Letitia James's office released a report on the shooting Friday that said the four NYPD officers were "legally justified" in the killing of 34-year-old Saheed Vassell in Crown Heights.
"It is very disappointing and heartbreaking to me, my family, and the community," Eric Vassell, the victim's father, said at a news conference in Manhattan in the afternoon.
Saheed Vassell was seen on video pointing a metal object at several people on Utica Avenue and Montgomery Street in Crown Heights around 4:30 p.m. on April 4, 2018.
Police said they received several 911 calls that Vassell had a gun or what appeared to be one. It was later determined to be a metal pipe.
Police said Vassell "took a two-handed shooting stance'' and approached the officers, who fired multiple times, striking him. He was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital.
The report identified the officers involved as Leon Dinham, Anthony Bottiglieri, Bekim Molic, and Omar Rafiq. They wounded Vassell a total of eight times, according to the report. James said none had ever fired their service weapon before.
Police released surveillance video two days after the shooting that they say shows Vassell pointing a metal object at several pedestrians.
The review acknowledged Vassell was bipolar but said the officers did not know that when they arrived at the scene. Some community advocates disagreed Friday.
"The NYPD did do something wrong here. They did kill someone," said an activist at the news conference.
Vassell's father and other community members have argued that police overreacted.
Eric Vassell met with James at her lower Manhattan office in February. He said at the time that he emerged from that meeting believing no officers would be charged.
Vassell's father said at the time of the shooting that his son suffered from bipolar disorder but was harmless.
"The death of Mr. Vassell was a tragedy that no police officer — or anyone — would ever want to occur," Police Commissioner James O'Neill said in a statement.
O'Neill said the NYPD would consider recommendations by the attorney general to improve how it responses to similar situations. Those recommendations said the department should review and reform its public information policies and practices, and called for 911 operators and police dispatchers to undergo comprehensive critical incident training.
For Vassell's family, that's not enough.
"What we've seen over the course of years now are African-American minorities are being shot by the police, unarmed, and there's really no accountability," family attorney Michael Houston said.
Vassell's family vows this is not the end of their fight, saying it will advocate for a disciplinary hearing for the officers involved.