Footage of Gowanus Houses shooting goes public

On January 10, the New York City Police Department released footage from an officer-involved shooting that took place in the Gowanus Houses on October 15, 2019. Plainclothesmen Henry Neumann and Matthew Schmalix interrupted a gunfight in progress between 30-year-old Nasheem Prioleau and an unnamed civilian on Baltic Street and fired 31 shots at Prioleau, who subsequently died at Brooklyn Hospital.

Last month, the Star-Revue published an article about frustrations in the Gowanus Houses regarding police accountability in the wake of the shooting. While the 76th Precinct publicly celebrated the officers involved at a Community Council meeting, locals alleged that NYPD had left many of the community’s questions about the incident unanswered. Prioleau’s family members, in particular, wanted more details and hoped to see video from the night in question, but by the end of 2019, their expectations had dimmed.

It came as a surprise, then, when the Kings County District Attorney’s Office invited them in the new year to examine footage from NYCHA’s closed-circuit surveillance system and NYPD’s body-worn cameras, one day before its release to the press. The 10-minute clip now on NYPD’s official YouTube page shows the incident from multiple vantage points, albeit from low-resolution cameras in the dark.

As the footage begins, Prioleau crosses Baltic Street to approach a parked SUV on the south side, holding what the video’s voiceover narrator, Sergeant Carlos Nieves, identifies as a gun. Another man – whom the video does not name, although, per Nieves, NYPD has ascertained his identity – emerges from the vehicle and runs to the north side of Baltic with what appears to be a pistol of his own. Nieves asserts that Prioleau began shooting at this point, but shadows and imperfect camera angles make his movements and position unclear.

When the policemen arrive at the scene, they exit their vehicle on the south side of Baltic, and Neumann takes cover behind a parked car while Schmalix finds a position on the grass within the housing complex, as their respective body-worn cameras reveal. Both discharge their firearms at Prioleau as the civilian on the north side of Baltic flees – possibly unnoticed – toward Wyckoff Street. The officers’ frantic movements rattle their cameras, rendering Prioleau, again, indecipherable until he has fallen to the sidewalk.

Informally intended to exculpate the officers, the video did not satisfy Prioleau’s family, who believed it left key questions unresolved. It didn’t show whether Prioleau – a blur on camera – had pointed his gun at the police, or even whether he was shooting at all, in any direction, when the officers opened fire. And because audio was absent for the first 30 seconds of NYPD’s footage and for the entirety of NYCHA’s, there was no way for the victim’s relatives to know whether the plainclothes cops identified themselves or ordered Prioleau to drop his weapon before discharging their firearms.

NYPD’s body-worn cameras record constantly, but in most cases, the footage self-deletes at 30-second intervals unless the officer presses an activation button to save the video. The clip delivered afterward to NYPD includes 30 seconds of footage prior to the activation as well as all subsequent footage. But during the 30-second “buffer period,” the camera does not record audio.

The first crucial moments of Neumann and Schmalix’s encounter with Prioleau occur during those silent 30 seconds. By the time the viewer hears the officers yelling their instructions – “Drop it!” and “Let me see your hands!” – Prioleau is already lying on the ground, fatally wounded.

“In the coming weeks and months, the NYPD Force Investigation Division, along with the Kings County District Attorney’s Office, will continue to investigate and analyze this incident as more interviews are conducted and forensic tests completed,” Nieves says. “After the investigation is complete, the facts of the case will be presented to the First Deputy Commissioner’s Use of Force Review Board, where the evidence will be evaluated to determine if the use of force applied in this case was justified and within department guidelines.”

Brett Yates