Timothy Stansbury Jr. was a 19-year old New York City man killed by a police officer in an accidental shooting in 2004. Stansbury was born on November 16, 1984 to Timothy Stansbury Sr. and Phyllis Clayburne, a crossing guard for the police department. Known as “Tim-Tim” to his family and “Drag” to his friends, Stansbury was a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School and worked part-time at McDonald’s.
At about 1:00 a.m. on January 24, 2004, two New York City police officers were patrolling a rooftop of the Louis Armstrong Houses, a housing project in Brooklyn. Officer Richard Neri approached a door with his service weapon drawn and, as he later reported, fired accidentally when Stansbury, a resident of the housing project, opened the door suddenly in front of him. An investigation later revealed that the door may have been opened by Neri’s partner, Jason Hallik, and that Stansbury was still inside the stairwell when the bullet struck him in his chest. Stansbury, who was unarmed at the time, and two companions were using the roof as a shortcut to a birthday party in an adjacent building. He staggered to the building’s lobby and was rushed by an ambulance to a hospital where he died a short time later.
A grand jury was impaneled six days after the shooting. Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn District Attorney, asked the jury to consider bringing charges of criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter against Neri. After a one-month investigation, the grand jury ruled the shooting an accident and declined to indict the officer.
The incident roiled the police department and city government. Within a day of the shooting, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called the murder unjustified and Mayor Mike Bloomberg visited Stansbury’s family to express condolences. His actions led Patrick Lynch of the police union to criticize both officials for not standing behind the officers. Tensions between Kelly and Lynch escalated to the point that the union called on the Commissioner to resign.
Stansbury’s family filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city and Officer Neri alleging he had “criminally, wantonly, recklessly and negligently fatally shot and killed decedent without cause or justification.” In May 2007, the New York Police Department agreed to pay a $2 million settlement to Stansbury’s family.
