A 15-year-old black high schooler was wrongly accused of a mass shooting by the New York Police Department (NYPD) despite only going to a Brooklyn parade.
The teenager found out about the situation after leaving football practice in September 2024 and seeing a photograph of him in a hoodie and shorts looking down on a Brooklyn street.
The NYPD said that the pictured individual was responsible for discharging a firearm at the West Indian American Day parade and killing one and wounding four others.
Mistakenly Accused of a Mass Shooting
The teenager, Camden Lee, said that when he looked at the image, he saw the NYPD logo, himself, and the words "suspect wanted for murder." He added that he could not believe what was happening, noting that everything suddenly went blurry.
However, privately, the NYPD seemed to have backpedaled their accusation almost immediately, declining to bring charges after meeting with Lee and his lawyer. The department then quietly removed the teenager's photograph from their X and Instagram accounts, according to the Associated Press.
Despite this, the department did not publicly acknowledge that it made the retraction of Lee's image and ignored repeatedly pleas by the boy's mother. The latter said that their lives remained threatened because of the false accusation.
Lee's family efforts have raised questions about the NYPD's policies for correcting misinformation. The agency is also under widespread scrutiny for other social media misrepresentations.
The teenage boy's mother, Chee Chee Brock, used to trust the NYPD and its operations. She added that she raised her kids to admit whenever they made a mistake, News40 reported.
Blaming an Innocent Teen for Murder
Brock wondered what else the department could get away with if it could blame an innocent kid for murder and not do anything after it was found to be false. On the other hand, Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Delaney Kempner, the department's newly appointed chief spokesperson, said she would look into the matter.
The spokesperson also did not provide any information as to why Lee was even identified as a suspect in the mass shooting in the first place. The teenager said that on the day of the incident, he was with a teammate, and they stopped at the annual Labor Day celebration of Caribbean culture at around 1:00 p.m.
Gunfire erupted minutes later along the route, and Lee's friend was grazed in the shoulder by one of the bullets that the real suspect fired. Lee was suddenly stunned after hearing gunshots for the first time in his life and seeing his friend bloody and being hauled away on a stretcher, as per ABC News.
