A 29-year-old Queens man fatally shot by NYPD cops was running toward them with a box cutter in his hand when they opened fire, newly released police body-worn camera footage shows.
The videos from the body-worn cameras of Officers Rocharlie Pointdujour and Amanda Delarosa appear to support the NYPD narrative of events more than the distraught family’s account of how the December shooting of Chez Fray unfolded in Far Rockaway.
His parents have contended that Fray was not a threat to anyone when cops shot him.
The NYPD and the state attorney general’s office both released the body-worn camera footage as they continue an investigation into Fray’s death.
Both cops joined the NYPD in January 2024 and have been on patrol for a year and a half, NYPD records show.
Mayor Mamdani said Wednesday he had watched the recently released footage.
“It’s incredibly heartbreaking to witness,” he said. “I know that the Police Department is commencing an investigation into this incident, and I look forward to seeing the results.”
Fray was smoking marijuana, acting out, and threatening his parents inside the family’s apartment on Nameoke St. near Central Ave. at about 12:30 a.m. Dec. 21 when his mother, Sheanette Dunbar, and father, Kevin Fray, left the apartment, authorities say.
His father called 911 saying his son was “acting violent,” officials said. He said his son wasn’t armed.
Body-worn camera footage shows Officers Pointdujour and Delarosa arriving at the scene and talking to the parents before going upstairs to the apartment.
“He’s disrespectful when he smoke,” Dunbar tells the officers, adding that her son “started to hallucinate” and “got aggressive.”
“It was just his words?” Delarosa asked Dunbar, trying to assess the situation. “No one was hurt or injured?”
“No, no, no,” Dunbar assured the police. “You just need to talk him down.”
Courtesy of family
Chez Fray, 29, was fatally shot by police in an apartment building at Nameoke St. in Far Rockaway on Dec. 21. (Courtesy of family)
The officers search the apartment but Chez isn’t there, the video shows. They were about to enter the hallway when Chez came up the stairs with a box cutter wrapped in electrical tape in his right hand, the video shows.
As an 86-second exchange unfolded, Chez stood perfectly still, a stunned expression on his face, as his father screamed at him and cops ordered him to drop the box cutter more than a dozen times.
His parents also pleaded with him to drop the weapon while begging the cops not to shoot their son.
“Shoot!” Chez screamed at least twice from about 20 feet away, the video shows.
Delarosa pulled a Taser while Pointdujour pulled her firearm as they repeated their demands for Chez to drop the weapon. That’s when Chez’s father slowly approached and tried to sweep his son up in a bear hug but the two wound up grappling with each other.
“I’m going to shoot him,” Pointdujour told her partner.
“No! You’ll hit the dad!” Delarosa said.
Chez and his father continue to grapple, with the officers ordering the father to back away as Chez’s panicked mother started wailing in the apartment.
“Please! Please! My only child!” the mom is heard saying.
“Tell your husband to back up now!” Delarosa screamed.
The father finally broke away from Chez and ran past the cops. Chez runs after his father toward the cops and was in striking distance of Delarosa and Pointdujour when they shot him with both the Taser and the gun, the videos shows. Chez was shot at least once in the chest.
At least two shots were fired. The officers performed CPR on Chez before medics took him to an area hospital, where he died about an hour later.
Chez was within 10 feet of the officers when he was shot, the video shows. Cops are trained to recognize that suspects closer than 21 feet, the so-called “zone of safety,” can represent a deadly threat and attack them within 1.5 seconds.
Rebecca White / NYDN; NYPD
An NYPD cop shot a man to death who, during a fight with his father, charged at police with a boxcutter (inset) in a Far Rockaway apartment building early Sunday. (Rebecca White / NYDN; NYPD)
Cops released a photo of the recovered blade. Chez had three arrests on his record, most recently for assault in March 2024.
A day after the shooting, Chez’s heartbroken parents proclaimed at a press conference outside the 101st Precinct stationhouse in Far Rockaway that their son posed no threat.
“It’s not right,” Kevin Fray told reporters. “I called for help, and they murdered my son.”
The father said he was merely hugging his son, not fighting him as police said, in the moments before the shooting.
The Rev. Kevin McCall, a social justice activist acting as a family spokesman, said Chez was having a reaction to marijuana and does not have mental health issues.
Chez used the blade to cut up his marijuana, he said.
“This was a call for help,” McCall said. “This was a father calling for help because his son was acting erratic.”
With Josephine Stratman
