The Attorney General’s Office is investigating a fatal police-involved shooting that occurred Sunday, August 27, 2023, in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Authorities say one man sustained fatal injuries and no further information is being released at this time.
The family of 52-year-old Andrew Washington identified him and said that they called the city’s crisis center for help because he was having a mental health episode due to bipolar disorder but a SWAT team arrived instead.
“While they’re going in, I’m saying, ‘Please, please don’t shoot him, you have pellet guns, you have tasers, please don’t shoot my nephew.’ They go up, all I hear is pop, pop, pop. My cousin said it was pellet guns, so we’re standing here thinking it’s pellet guns but when he comes out, he’s got blood on him,” said Lisa Mendez, Washington’s aunt and caretaker.
Mendez claims that several family members witnessed the incident and waited hours for answers from detectives after he had been taken into surgery at Jersey City Medical Center.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, at about 2:28 p.m. Sunday, officers from the Jersey City Police Department responded to a home on Randolph Avenue in the area of Bramhall Avenue.
Local emergency medical services personnel requested the assistance of police.
One Jersey City police officer fired his service weapon and a male civilian was struck.
The injured man was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced deceased at approximately 4:47 p.m.
A 2019 law requires the Attorney General’s Office to conduct investigations of a person’s death that occurs during an encounter with a law enforcement officer acting in the officer’s official capacity or while the decedent is in custody.
It requires that all such investigations be presented to a grand jury to determine if the evidence supports the return of an indictment against the officer or officers involved.
The investigation is ongoing.