Two NYPD officers will not face charges in the May 2024 killing of 26-year-old Andre Mayfield, who was shot after throwing a glass bottle at a patrol car in Bushwick, standing back up with a knife after being tased, and advancing toward officers who then opened fire. State prosecutors say the shooting was legally justified. Mayfield's father says his son, a home health aide who struggled with depression and mental illness, never should have died that way.
According to the New York Attorney General's Office, the encounter began at approximately 2:18 a.m. on May 26, 2024, when Mayfield walked up to a marked NYPD patrol vehicle parked at Central Avenue and Eldert Street and threw a glass bottle at the passenger-side window before officers got out. The two officers had just finished responding to an unrelated domestic call and were parked at the intersection when Mayfield approached. As News12 Brooklyn reports, the Attorney General's Office released body camera footage of the incident this week as part of its final report closing out the two-year investigation.
From Tasers to Gunfire in Seconds
Once outside the vehicle, both officers deployed Tasers, causing Mayfield to fall to the ground, per the AG's office. He then stood back up holding a knife and continued moving toward the officers, prompting both to fire their service weapons. Investigators later recovered two knives at the scene. Mayfield was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
State prosecutors determined the shooting was legally justified under New York Penal Law Section 35.30, which permits an officer to use deadly physical force when they reasonably believe it necessary to defend against another person's imminent use of deadly physical force. The Office of Special Investigation concluded that a prosecutor could not disprove justification beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. The review was required under New York Executive Law Section 70-b, a 2021 statute that mandates the Attorney General's Office of Special Investigation independently assess any civilian death involving a police or peace officer statewide, with findings issued as a public report or presented to a grand jury.
A Father's Grief and Questions About Mental Illness
Mayfield's father, Joseph Mayfield, condemned the police response as excessive, saying his son was a home health aide who suffered from depression and mental illness and was shot four times, in the arm, shoulder, face, and head. Relatives have questioned why officers did not re-deploy their Tasers or bring in mental health de-escalation specialists before resorting to gunfire, according to CBS News New York.
Then-Mayor Eric Adams defended the officers shortly after the shooting, telling reporters that knives are real weapons and that officers must make split-second decisions using the tools available to them to defend themselves. His comments came during a press briefing as Mayfield's family was already demanding reforms to how police respond to people in crisis.
Mayfield's Death Fueled a Broader Push to Rethink Police Response
Mayfield's death became a rallying point beyond his own family. In the days after the shooting, Communities United for Police Reform and New York City Council members cited both his case and the fatal shooting of Win Rozario while protesting at City Hall, demanding that NYPD officers be removed from mental health crisis calls and that funding for non-police crisis teams like B-HEARD be expanded instead.
The case also arrived amid a documented rise in police shootings citywide. As of late May 2024, the NYPD had recorded 13 “adversarial officer-involved shootings” for the year, a slight increase over the 12 logged during the same period in 2023, according to NYPD figures cited by CBS News. Nationally, law enforcement officers killed at least 1,271 people in 2024, the highest single-year total of fatal police encounters recorded in a decade, per the Police Violence Report.
Two Years Between Footage and Final Findings
The Attorney General's Office first released body-worn camera and security video of the incident in September 2024, months after Mayfield's death, as part of its ongoing probe. That early release reflected policy under Attorney General Letitia James directing camera footage be made public during active investigations to increase transparency. It would take nearly two years for the office to issue its final investigative report clearing the officers this week.
The outcome fits a pattern Hoodline has tracked in other cases, where the Office of Special Investigation has determined that officers' use of force was justified after finding an immediate physical threat. Mayfield's family and progressive elected officials continue to point to his mental health history as evidence that armed officers are ill-equipped to handle acute psychiatric crises, while city leadership and law enforcement officials maintain that officers in these encounters face real weapons and must react in split seconds. That tension remains unresolved even as the legal case against the officers has now formally closed.
