(Jamaica Gleaner) A New Jersey state trooper fired his handgun six times, killing a New York state man after a struggle erupted during a traffic stop on the Garden State Parkway last month, recently released video showed.
About a dozen audio and dashboard camera video recordings from the May 23 traffic stop in Bass River, New Jersey, shed more light on the death of 28-year-old Maurice Gordon, a black Jamaican man from Poughkeepsie.
His death has sparked an investigation by the state attorney general and will lead the case to be presented to a grand jury under a 2019 law aimed at holding law enforcement accountable.
The trooper was identified for the first time Monday as Sergeant Randall Wetzel, according to New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, who said the shooting is still being investigated.
The release of the videos Monday came amid global protests of police use of force against black people, touched off by the death of George Floyd, who died two days after Gordon after a white Minneapolis officer pressed a knee into his neck.
Also released were audio recordings of a 911 call from the day before the shooting made by one of Gordon’s friends, who said Gordon had left his house in the middle of the night looking “really panicked.”
The attorney for Gordon’s family, William O. Wagstaff III, said in a phone interview he thought race was a factor in Gordon’s death.
“If Maurice Gordon was a white male he’d still be alive,” Wagstaff said.
A message was left at a cell phone listed for Wetzel, and another was left with the attorney general’s office asking if he has an attorney.
The video shows Wetzel, a white man, pulling Gordon over about 6:30 a.m. and telling him he stopped him because he was going 110 miles per hour.
Gordon had been pulled over about 15 minutes earlier and given a ticket for going 101 miles per hour on the Parkway and a few hours before that was helped by police to get a tow truck when he apparently ran out of gas, according to Grewal.
Before the shooting, Gordon pulled over, and Wetzel can be heard telling him the spot was not safe and that he should move his vehicle over more. Gordon is heard saying his car won’t start, and he tried unsuccessfully to turn it on.
Wetzel then asked Gordon if he wanted to wait for a tow truck in the police car. Instead of walking toward the car, Gordon began to walk toward the highway.
The trooper guided Gordon a few times away from the highway and to the back of the police car.
