Activists say man shot by Raleigh police was mentally ill, call for officer to be fired
Activists called on Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson on Friday to fire an officer they say provoked and escalated a fatal confrontation with a man who was throwing Molotov cocktails outside a police station.
Master Officer P.W. Coates should be fired, said Dawn Blagrove, executive director of Emancipate NC, during a news conference outside the Southeast District station, where Reuel Rodriguez-Núñez was killed May 7 after he threw cups of flammable liquid at officers.
“If there are no real consequences to people’s actions, then their actions don’t change,” Blagrove said. “Why in the world should Raleigh be paying for an officer who chose to abuse the trust that he was given, by killing a man who was in a mental health crisis?”
Patterson has said Rodriguez-Núñez disregarded repeated commands to stop throwing the incendiary weapons, and that after he threw one at an officer, four officers at the scene fired 30 rounds at him.
According to a report Patterson issued five days after the shooting, Coates repeatedly told Rodriguez-Núñez “Go ahead [expletive], do it, do it!” and shouted to the other officers “Give me the go ahead!”
“Where’s the accountability for the officers that bullied this man having a mental health crisis?” asked Emancipate NC activist Kerwin Pittman at the news conference.
“Individuals were de-escalating the situation, but yet he chose to escalate the situation and essentially provoke and bully somebody having a mental health crisis,” Pittman continued. “If someone who was having a mental health crisis and standing on the ledge of a bridge about to jump, this was akin to this officer running over there and telling him ‘Jump, jump! Go ahead, do it! Jump, go ahead, do it!’”
Also at the news conference was Jasiel Rodriguez-Núñez, Reuel’s older brother.
“This is a very hard time for me and my family and this did not have to end like this,” Jasiel Rodriguez-Núñez said. “My brother ... was just sending a message of his mental illness. It was a way of speaking out in his mind. He was having a breakdown.”
Reuel had been jailed in 2021 and had problems there that lengthened his sentence, his brother said. He was having “a tough time” after being released in September last year, he said.
Security footage shows it took roughly 15 minutes for an officer to arrive at the parking lot after Rodriguez-Nuñez had pulled up, stepped out of a van and thrown a jar of urine and feces at the entrance of the police station.
He proceeded to retrieve and light cups of flammable liquid to burn two parked vehicles nearby.
“This was completely a case of someone in a mental health crisis,” argued Toshiba Rice, who identified herself as a mental health professional for imWELL, a mental health clinic, at the news conference.
“Evidence of pulling into a police station with no body armor, and using urine and feces as an offense was the first indicator that it was a mental health crisis, as well as Mr. Núñez’s body language, his actions for targeting property of objects to destroy and complete nonverbal presentation,” she said.
Emancipate NC demands
Blagrove read out the demands of Emancipate NC, which included:
▪ Firing Coates.
▪ Revoking his law enforcement certification.
▪ Removing his pay while he is placed on administrative leave as the case is investigated by police and the State Bureau of Investigation.
The city should invest in a “mobile crisis response team external of law enforcement,” for Raleigh police’s ACORNS unit to respond to “any possible for calls for service of someone in mental distress or having a mental health crisis,” according to Emancipate NC’s demands.
Emancipate NC also wants every officer in the department to undergo de-escalation, crisis intervention and character training.
The officers involved in the May 7 shooting are being investigated to determine if they violated any department policy, Lt. Jason Borneo of the Raleigh Police Department said in an email. Internal and SBI investigations are routine when officers shoot suspects.
What police footage showed
Security and body camera footage documented the deadly encounter — including that of an officer, identified as Coates, shouting, “Go ahead (expletive) do it.”
One officer who arrives asks Rodriguez-Núñez, “What’s going on, man?“ What’s going on?” The officer has not drawn his weapon and shrugs as he speaks.
Rodriguez-Núñez can be heard responding, “Today ... is my day to move on.”
The same officer says: “Calm down brother. You don’t have to do this.”
Coates, wearing body camera 3 in the city’s video release, is closest to Rodriguez-Nunez and has drawn his gun from its holster.
“Do it! Do it! Go a-(expletive)-head. Go right (expletive) ahead. Go ahead (expletive). Do it! Do it!” he shouts.
A different officer says “put your hands up” as the officer on body camera 3 continues to say “Do it!”
“Give me the go ahead,” Coates is heard saying.
Multiple officers order Rodriguez-Núñez to drop the Molotov cocktails, the footage shows.
“Take your hands out of your (expletive) pockets!” Coates shouts, along with “Don’t do it (expletive), I’m done with you!”
Patterson’s report states burning liquid hit the ground where Coates had been standing, “narrowly missing him only because he moved out of the way.”
Keith Taylor, a former New York City police detective now teaching John Jay College for Criminal Justice in New York, reviewed the body camera footage at The News & Observer’s request.
The officers may have been right to respond with lethal force because of an armed threat, he said, but the “provocative language” that Coates used “would probably not be acceptable behavior for most, if not all police departments.”
“If the officer was using language that was goading or taunting this individual to commit acts of violence against the officer, then that is not appropriate in any situation, whether it be an explosive material being thrown at the officers or whether it be a gun, the threat of being shot,” Taylor said in an interview. “Officers should never goad or taunt someone into committing acts of violence against them.”
Taylor said he’d like to know whether the officers could have come up with a plan of action, to get an opportunity to get better cover and protect themselves.
“Did (police) simply all respond and then just collectively decide to shoot this individual when he was not complying and actively threatening them?” Taylor asked. “Was there enough time to consider other options that might lead to possibly not resulting in this individual’s loss of life.”
Daniel Turcios shooting
Emancipate NC has now called twice for greater police accountability, after two fatal shootings of men by Raleigh officers this year.
In January, 43-year-old Daniel Turcios was fatally shot by police after he appeared to swing a knife at an officer in the aftermath of a wreck on the side of Interstate 440.
Emancipate NC later joined his family in calling prosecutors to file criminal charges against two officers who tased and shot Turcios.
This story was originally published June 10, 2022 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Activists say man shot by Raleigh police was mentally ill, call for officer to be fired."
