{"id":93220,"date":"2026-01-08T02:00:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T02:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/93220\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T02:00:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T02:00:28","slug":"ag-letitia-james-wont-charge-two-nypd-cops-who-shot-fleeing-armed-man-in-brooklyn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/93220\/","title":{"rendered":"AG Letitia James won’t charge two NYPD cops who shot fleeing armed man in Brooklyn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorney General Letitia James will not seek charges against two officers who shot a fleeing armed man<\/a> in Brooklyn last May, after her office issued a report saying<\/a> a prosecutor wouldn\u2019t be able to disprove a justification defense beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

James\u2019s investigators sat down with the family of Christian Emile on Wednesday, telling the 33-year-old man\u2019s mother, fiance, close cousin and two other relatives about their decision not to charge the officers who shot and killed Emile<\/a>\u00a0in East Flatbush on May 12, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very disappointed with what I heard today,\u201d Emile\u2019s mother, Tarnisha Woolard, told the Daily News. \u201cI just feel like my son was executed on the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody wants to go up against the big, almighty, powerful NYPD,\u201d she added. \u201cNobody wants to ever say that they\u2019re wrong. It\u2019s always a way to find that the NYPD was never wrong, and until they start holding the NYPD accountable, they\u2019re always going to keep getting away with whatever they do. Because nobody holds them accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NYPD<\/p>\n

Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News<\/p>\n

Police investigate the scene where Christian Emile was shot in East Flatbush on May 12, 2024. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Body-cam footage<\/a> from Officer Alexander Campos \u2014 one of the two officers who fired at Emile \u2014 shows the cop arriving at the intersection of E. 52nd St. and Church Ave. around 1 a.m. and getting out of a marked police car. Campos\u2019 fellow officers, Sgt. Kyle Sforza and Officer Brian Mejia-Morel, who were already on the scene, confronted Emile and chased him. Campos was holding a gun as Emile fled.<\/p>\n

The video shows Campos deploy his Taser as three shots ring out in the background. The stun gun hit Emile, and he stumbled but got back up and keeps running, as both Campos and Mejia-Morel opened fire, bringing Emile to the ground, the video shows.<\/p>\n

Just before the confrontation, Emile was seen pacing between cars and arguing with at least one other person, a gun in his hand.<\/p>\n

\"StillStill frame from a Tappin Lounge camera showing Mr. Emile with what appeared to be a gun in his pants pocket. (NY Attorney Generals Office)<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder New York\u2019s justification law, a police officer may use deadly physical force when the officer reasonably believes it to be necessary to defend against the use of deadly physical force by another,\u201d the AG\u2019s office said in a statement Wednesday. \u201cIn this case, when officers arrived to investigate a dispute on the street, they encountered Mr. Emile, who had a gun in his hand, ran from officers, and ignored repeated commands to drop his weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement continued, \u201cUnder these circumstances, given the law and the evidence, a prosecutor would not be able to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial that the officers\u2019 use of deadly physical force against Mr. Emile was justified, and therefore OSI (Office of Special Investigation) determined that criminal charges would not be pursued in this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"StillStill frame from a Red Sea security camera, showing Mr. Emile with a gun in his right hand as he was about to walk diagonally across Church Avenue toward East 53rd Street. (NY Attorney Generals Office)<\/p>\n

The two officers shot Emile six times, and one of their bullets grazed a bystander\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

Neither the NYPD nor the Police Benevolent Association returned a request for comment on the AG\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

Woolard said she hoped James would make a different choice, adding her absence at the meeting with investigators made it clear the officers wouldn\u2019t be facing charges.<\/p>\n

Her absence is like her saying \u201c\u2018OK, you go and tell them, you deal with it.\u2019 So it\u2019s basically like she doesn\u2019t have time for this,\u201d Woolard\u00a0 said.<\/p>\n

MK Kaishian, the lawyer for Emile\u2019s family, pointed out both the video and report show Mejia-Morel started firing bullets at the same time Campos deployed his Taser. Also, Kaishian said, the video and report don\u2019t back up earlier assertions by police that Emile pointed the gun at a rival, or at the cops.<\/p>\n

The family in August filed a lawsuit<\/a> against the city and the responding officers in Brooklyn Supreme Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorney General Letitia James will not seek charges against two officers who shot a fleeing armed man in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,85,267,9,24,264,10,12,63],"class_list":["post-93220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-new-york-news","tag-news","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}