On April 14 around 6:20 a.m., New York Police Department officers shot and killed 60-year-old Queens resident King Wong. The NYPD had received 911 calls reporting that Wong was displaying signs of mental distress while holding a knife near 30th Avenue and 31st Street in Astoria. After arriving at the intersection, NYPD officers attempted only 56 seconds of deescalation before opening fire, claiming that their tasers were ineffective and that they were “forced to defend themselves.”
Eyewitness accounts contradict this narrative, suggesting that opening fire was not treated as a last resort. Officers resorted to shooting so quickly that eyewitness Emmanuel Yamoah thought they were returning fire, recalling that as soon as he heard them say “Put the weapon down,” he heard shooting. An eyewitness working at a nearby corner store, who captured a video of the incident, recounted that it looked like Wong was walking away from the police when they began shooting. This account matches footage circulated in news stories showing the officers chasing Wong with guns and a taser aimed at him seconds before they ended his life. This is a familiar story.
According to his neighbors, Wong had a history of mental illness and was cared for by his parents in Woodside NYCHA housing until they passed away years ago.
King Wong’s killing part of a nationwide epidemic
Wong’s murder typifies the NYPD’s regular use of lethal force against those experiencing mental health crises. In 2024, officers fatally shot mentally distressed 19-year-old Win Rozario in his Queens home within three minutes of arriving. He was holding a pair of scissors. No deescalation was attempted. His mother and brother begged the officers not to shoot, and after watching their family member murdered in front of them the two were taken to the precinct, separated, and interrogated without legal counsel. Rozario’s mother, Notan Eva Costa, has called the time since the murder a “year with no justice,” as ongoing investigations by the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the attorney general have yielded no accountability, let alone indictments or even terminations of the officers responsible.
In 2018, Saheed Vassell, known and loved by his Crown Heights neighbors, was killed by the police while holding a metal pipe. Officers’ cameras were not turned on. Vassell’s aunt was quoted at the time, saying “I bet if he was a white kid, they wouldn’t fire a shot at him like that.” In all, since 2015, the NYPD has killed 20 people in mental health crisis, part of a nationwide epidemic in which during the same period police have taken the lives of over 1400 people with mental illness.
People in distress require professional and community support, and in 2024 the U.S Department of Justice stated that, in accordance with the American Disabilities Act, those experiencing mental health crises are entitled to the same level of care provided to anyone in need of emergency healthcare. Instead they are often met with excessive and lethal force from responding police officers.
If the NYPD is not equipped to respond to mental health emergencies, what are the alternatives? Notably, the city’s non-police 911 alternative, B-HEARD, only serves 31 of 77 police precincts as of 2024, and is not authorized to respond to people perceived to pose a threat to themselves or others. Data from the Public Advocate’s office suggests that even if scaled up to serve the whole city, B-HEARD would only staff 280 people — this compared to the NYPD’s 35,000 cops. Last year, the Adams administration increased the NYPD’s already bloated budget to more than $10 billion while implementing cuts to agencies providing social services and security to New Yorkers, highlighting the city government’s preference for police violence and austerity over the appropriation of funds for care-centered resources and emergency response.
Overall, cuts to the city budget last year were less severe than initially announced, thanks to higher-than-expected tax revenue, and advocacy group outrage. Still, cuts included a draconian 30% reduction in spending for migrant services, along with massive cuts to the Parks Department and decreased funding for 3-K childcare. This year’s proposal included a 20%, $102 million budget cut to the Department for the Aging, which would have dramatically reduced funding for delivered meals, social services, and eviction support for the elderly.
At the state level, funding for psychiatric care is still down since the implementation of former governor Andrew Cuomo’s “Transformation Plan” in 2014, along with further reductions in psych ward bed numbers to increase COVID-19 supply which have yet to be reversed. Just this month, a new state law was passed which loosened the legal standard for “involuntary commitment of the mentally ill.” The law will free first responders, including police, to “forcibly hospitalize mentally ill New Yorkers,” without providing the increased housing or out-patient care required for hospitalization to be effective, setting the stage for even more police interactions with and violence against marginalized people.
We demand a new society
With unemployment rising, inflation skyrocketing, and Trump’s new executive order promising to “unleash law enforcement to pursue criminals”, repressive state violence against people like King Wong, Win Rozario and Saheed Vassell is likely to continue expanding in scope. But it doesn’t have to be this way — we demand a society in which our tax dollars go toward jobs, healthcare and housing rather than bloated police budgets. We honor the lives of Wong, Rozario, Vassell and all other victims of NYPD by building a mass movement and fighting for a society in which people’s basic needs are met, free from police violence — a socialist society.
Feature image: Armed NYPD officers. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
