Matthew Felix was a 19-year-old from Queens who, after being surveilled and followed, was shot and killed by plain clothes Nassau County police officers outside his home in Queens.[1] Matthew was unarmed, posed no threat, and the officers were outside of their jurisdiction when they took his life. Neither the police nor the Attorney General has taken action to investigate this state sponsored assassination. On September 20, 2020, Attorney General Leticia James said that her office would “proactively release body-worn camera footage as part of our investigation into police-involved civilian deaths.”[2] Many police departments outside of New York City, including the officers in this case, do not wear body cams but have dashboard cameras.[3] The Attorney General’s Office has said that they are working on a process for releasing dash-cam footage. It has been eight months since Matthew’s murder. The footage from Matthew’s death has not been released and since then, the office has been stonewalling the family’s lawyers attempts to get any further information from the office such as the names of the police officers involved.
We will no longer wait for local authorities to determine when videos should be made available. The Attorney General’s Office and all police departments work for us, as residents. As their bosses, tax-payers, and the electorate, we are demanding that they release the footage immediately. Join Matthew’s family in their fight for justice by signing this petition and sending this letter to Attorney General James’ Office.
Notes
[1] David Brand, “After AG’s bodycam pledge, family of Queens teen shot by cops seeks footage,” Queens Daily Eagle, September 23, 2020.
[2] Sidney Pereira, “NY Attorney General Commits To Swifter Release Of Body Camera Footage In Investigations Of Police-Involved Deaths,” Gothamist, September 20, 2020.
[3] Brand, “After AG’s bodycam pledge, family of Queens teen shot by cops seeks footage,”
