Photo: Getty Images
New York City police have finally issued a public apology months after sharing an online post that falsely accused a Black teenager of a fatal shooting at a Brooklyn parade.
On Sunday (February 9), the NYPD spoke out publicly for the first time about an image of Camden Lee, a 15-year-old Brooklyn resident, circulating online that “mistakenly stated that he was wanted for the fatal shooting” at the West Indian American Day Parade in September.
“The NYPD should have immediately corrected this misstatement,” the department said in a statement, per the Associated Press. “We apologize for the error and will continue to seek justice for the victims of this shooting.”
Prior to the apology, the NYPD had refused for months to publicly acknowledge that they had mistakenly linked the teen to the fatal shooting.
Lee was reportedly leaving high school football practice in September when he saw his image blasted on the New York Police Department's social media.
"The pictured individual" had "discharged a firearm" at the West Indian American Day parade, killing one person and injuring four others, the department wrote alongside Lee's photo.
Lee said gunfire erupted as he was walking to the annual Labor Day celebration of Caribbean culture with a teammate. Lee's friend was injured in the shooting. Surveillance footage shows Lee's stunned expression as his bloodied friend was carried away in a stretcher.
It's unclear why Lee was identified as a suspect. In private, police met with Lee and his lawyer and acknowledged that they had wrongly linked the teen with the fatal shooting. The department quietly removed his photo from its social media accounts but ignored pleas from Lee's family to acknowledge the mistake publicly.
Without public clarification, Lee's photo continued to circulate online, causing the teenager to receive death threats.
Lee previously described feeling like people are looking at him and whispering behind his back as he walks through his neighborhood and the hallways at school.
“It takes me to a dark place,” Lee said. “I don’t feel like myself anymore. I don’t have the opportunity to explain my side of the story. Everyone is so fixed on this one image of me: murderer.”
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