New York (AP) – Camden Lee was leaving high school football exercises in September when he saw the photo, the New York Police Department slipped into the social media accounts, which will soon increase his life. –
In the image of crisp surveillance, the 15 -year -old man stands alone in a hoodie and shorts, his eyes throw down on Brooklyn Street. Police announced in a title, “Photo person,” in the Western Indian American Day Parade, “Fire -on Weapons”, ” Killing one person and injuring four others.
16 -year -old Camden Lee entered a Uber to go to school on Tuesday, January 28, 2025 in Brooklyn Bro, New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demari Nikhason)
“I’m watching the NYPD people. I see me I see that the suspect was wanted for murder ‘. “Lee remembered.” I couldn’t believe what was happening. Then everything was blurred.
Privately, the police immediately. He was useless. After meeting with Lee and his lawyer, he refused to bring the allegations, then quietly removed his photo from his X and Instagram accounts. But he has not publicly acknowledged the client, ignoring Lee and his mother’s repeated requests, who say his life is a threat to a lie.
The search for the search family has raised questions about NYPD policies when the department is already facing investigation of other social media false statements.
“I had a lot of confidence in Nypd and how they work,” but “but I made a mistake to my children, and you raised it.” If you can accuse an innocent child of killing, what else can you save?
The deputy commissioner for public information, Delney Camepenar, said he would consider the matter but would not answer the list of questions nor provided further information.
It is not yet clear why Lee was identified as a suspect.
On the day of the firing, Lee said, he left the football practice and after about 1 1 minute with a team partner with a team partner with a team partner with a team partner on the occasion of the annual labor of the Caribbean culture, when this route I was shot, his friend grazed in the shoulder. Lee said the surveillance image for the first time showed his surprise after hearing the sounds of bullets, then saw his blood -fed friend standing on a stretcher.
When the police published it, on September 19, Lee’s mother immediately. He contacted a lawyer, Kenneth Montgomery, who offered to meet with spies of massacre that night. But police told the lawyer to bring the teenager to Brooklyn’s 77th Pressant Station next week. At the meeting – according to Montgomery, Le and his mother – spies said he was not a suspect.
“He admitted that he was misunderstood,” Montgomery said. “But these officers were so fortunate about it. It was like they were playing with a child’s life.
Until then, NYPD’s communications division had distributed Lee’s image widely into media outlets and TV stations, which urged people to come forward with indications about anonymous suspects.
According to a joint text messages jointly with the Associated Press, a top official of the department has called for some shops not to use the photo in follow -up stories about shooting. But the conversation with the reporters was “off the record”, which prevented the news sites from telling why the picture was removed.
In the absence of an official explanation, this photo has continued to circulate online, which causes death threats against Lee’s online silhouettes who have tracked their social media accounts.
When he got ready for school recently, Lee pulled out an Instagram page with 750,000 followers and scored through comments below his photo.
One read, “He’s going to find it quickly.” Another said straightforward: “He did.” Others tagged the friends and family of 25 -year -old Danziel Chen who were shot dead. “They also deserve answers,” Lee said about Chen’s loved ones. “
Immediate firing. Later, at a news conference, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chel said the violence was related to the collective. He described the suspect as a slim man in his 20s who wore a brown shirt and bandana with paint. Lee, who was 16 years old in January, did not wear in the photo released weeks later.
Fear of a potential group’s retaliation, a single mother who works in the post office, Brook transferred her son and two daughters to a relative’s house outside the city. Lee lost his school weeks, hurting his grade, as is a proof of a report hanging on the refrigerator through a card. While this family has returned to Brooklyn, Lee’s mother is forbidden to roam alone.
Brook said, “As a mother, the number 1 that I am afraid of is losing her children in the streets or prison systems.” “So he is no longer freedom. When he goes to the corner store, I give it time.
This has noticed the family’s attention that the wrong identity has come on a unique tumultuous time for the City Police. In 17 days between firing and photo release, federal agents seized police commissioner Edward Cabin phones, Who resigned againTo tell the officers that the investigation “created a disturbance for the department.”
“There is tremendous pressure on NYPD to present the results of such a high -level firing,” said Valley Sticlo, a civil rights lawyer. “The fact is that they have failed to tell how this mistake was made, and how they will avoid it in the future, is very disturbing.”
Since the department seeks to restore its image, its communication strategy has also been set on fire. A Recent reports With the investigation of the city department, some NYPD executives made a mistake for the use of social media for the “irresponsible and non -professional” use of social media and demanded the department to formulate their policies around deleting public lines.
In a social media post earlier, the eagle, which has been promoted to the Chief of Department, has been promoted. Mistakenly identified a judge He alleged that he allowed a hunter to return to the community. This post was also deleted.
In December, when the initial wave of attention began to decline, police announced that they were raising information about the shooting to the $ 10,000. This time he did not circulate the picture of Lee.
But without official confirmation that Lee is no longer a suspect, many news stations and newspapers have opened its old image anyway. It is left all over the Internet, including some news stories.
“It has brought the picture again to the picture, it has brought it all in the beginning.” “My mother was just thinking to let me go again.”
Recently, he said, he could feel people looking at him, whispering behind, when he passes through the hallway in his neighborhood or school. It has considered cutting his hair or buying new clothes in hopes of a unacceptable passage. For a few days he likes not to leave the house.
“It takes me to a dark place,” said Lee. “I don’t feel like myself anymore. I do not have the opportunity to explain my aspect of the story. Everyone is so fixed on this picture: killer.
