The parents of a 29-year-old Queens man shot to death by an NYPD cop claimed Monday he was not threatening anyone —- but the NYPD said video shows him charging officers with a box cutter.
NYPD
An NYPD cop shot a man to death who, during a fight with his father, charged at police with a boxcutter (pictured) in a Far Rockaway apartment building early Sunday. (NYPD)
The shooting inside the family’s apartment building on Nameoke St. near Central Ave. in Far Rockaway about 12:30 a.m. Sunday is now the subject of an internal NYPD review, as are all police shootings.
The family say Chez Fray was reacting badly to marijuana and acting erratically, and they called police hoping cops would just talk him down.
Police said Monday that when Fray was shot once in the chest moments after a Taser fired at him didn’t subdue him he was charging at officers and “well within” 21 feet of them. Cops are trained to recognize that suspects closer than that, the so-called “zone of safety,” can represent a deadly threat and attack them within 1.5 seconds.
Rebecca White / NYDN
Police responding to a 911 call about a father-son dispute showed up at an apartment building at Nameoke St. near Central Ave. in Far Rockaway about 12:25 a.m. Sunday. (Rebecca White / NYDN)
NYPD Chief of Patrol Philip Rivera at a Sunday press conference said Fray can be seen on the officers’ body-worn cameras going at the officers while armed with the box cutter, ignoring commands to drop the weapon. The NYPD has not yet released that footage.
Two uniformed cops from the 101st Precinct were first met by Fray’s parents outside, Rivera sad. The officers went into the apartment with the parents to find their son but he wasn’t inside, Rivera said.
Courtesy of family
Chez Fray, 29, was fatally shot by police in an apartment building at Nameoke St. in Far Rockaway on Sunday. (Courtesy of family)
When they left the apartment, they found the son in a hallway wielding a boxcutter, Rivera said. The father started scuffling with his son, Rivera said, and the officers repeatedly told the son to drop his weapon but he refused, Rivera said.
The father then “disengaged from the physical altercation with his son and retreated behind the uniformed police officers,” Rivera said.
That’s when Fray charged at the cops with the boxcutter, according to police, who released a photo of the recovered blade.
But Fray’s heartbroken parents insisted Monday in a press conference outside the 101st Precinct stationhouse in Far Rockaway that their son posed no threat.
“It’s not right,” said Fray’s father, Kevin Fray. “I called for help and they murdered my son.”
The father says he was hugging his son, not tussling him, in the moments before the shooting.
The Rev. Kevin McCall, a social justice activist acting as a family spokesman, said that while it is true Kevin Fray called 911 to report that his son was acting up, he told the dispatcher that his son wasn’t a threat.
McCall said Monday Chez Fray was having a reaction to marijuana and that he does not have mental health issues.
“This was not a case of mental health,” McCall said. “This was a call for help. This was a father calling for help because his son was acting erratic.”
McCall says Chez Fray used the blade to cut up his marijuana.
Chez Fray, who had three arrests on his record, the last arrested, for assault, in March 2024.
On Sunday, he was tended to at the scene by the officers, with medics then rushing him to South Nassau Hospital, where he died at 1:21 a.m., officials said.