Former NYPD chief of detectives talks investigation into fatal stabbing

Welcome Rodney Harrison back to Newsroom Live. Rodney, thank you so much for making time for us. We appreciate it. My pleasure. When you look at this case of what happened in Brooklyn, the detectives eventually ended up using different types of video surveillance that they were able to put together to track him down and figure out that he was the suspect that they were looking for. But what strikes you the most about this case from when you first heard about it to what we know about it today? Well, there's a couple of things I want to make sure that I share, that the New York City detectives are arguably the greatest detectives in the world. And with the implementation of technology and sciences, anybody that looks to commit a crime needs to look over their shoulder because the investigators will use these resources to hunt you down. And one of the roles when you have a case like this where there is no video that can capture the incident. The investigators took upon themselves to take a look at the closest area that where there is video and that's how they were able to identify the suspect. And then being able to put a video compilation together using a team of investigators that actually have this skill set and they are able to track down the steps going backwards to where a possible perpetrator that was involved in this case and be able to bring him to justice. So it really is great work by a team of investigators. I don't know if you're aware of this, but they actually. Put a task force together of investigators throughout the Brooklyn area to make sure he worked very, very diligently and bring this case to a close within a within a week's time frame. And that's with no evidence that they had there on the scene, which made it very, very difficult. And Rodney, as you pointed out, there were no cameras there. It was a very dimly lit area where this happened, according to all the reports that I've seen and read. And then when you talk about the video surveillance, explain for us, because it's very familiar to you, with your background with the detectives, and as a leader of detectives, but how do they take a piece of video where maybe they see him emerging nearby? Do you go by a time frame? How do you even begin to sort? The video once or once he gets into a place where there are video cameras. Yeah. So the investigators start going backwards. He tried to identify what time the crime actually occurred. And then they'll start going to different locations or establishments that may have some type of video surveillance on the premise. And then they'll ask the managers or the assistant managers at the location, say, hey, listen, we want to take a look. At some video between a certain time frame on a certain date, and then they'll start looking at individuals or suspects that kind of possibly may fit a profile that they're looking at. And that's exactly what happened in this situation. And then once he had somebody identified. Because there's video cameras all over the place, they were able to track this individual back to his residence and then be able to put the handcuffs on him. So this is something that is not new. This is one of the ways that. Investigators throughout the country are seeing success, as well as being able to put that compilation together. Just in case there has to be a judicial process, they're able to put that compilation together to show the jurors or anybody in the grand jury to say, hey, this is how we were able to come up with the conclusion that Sayed Mohasib was the individual involved. And then do they, do they go and, I mean, we've seen them, I've seen them sometimes when I've been covering crimes, they're, they're actually, you know, they're going into the grocery stores, the bodegas, they're going into, uh, you know, they're, they're literally going door to door in buildings, talking to building supers and security, uh, security people at various establishments, asking them for video. Do they have to wait for court, like for a court order to get it? If the people, or do the, you know, people say, okay, we want you to help you solve this crime. You can have this video. How, how, how are they? How were they able to get it so quickly? Yeah, and that's a great question, and I want to say 9.5 out of 10 times, establishment building owners are cooperative. Do you have some times where people are not willing to share their video? Unfortunately, this is the world we live in, where sometimes people may not have the faith and trust in law enforcement, but that's why there is such a need to make sure we have strong relationships, community involvement. We can't solve cases By ourselves or work in the vacuum, as long as we have partners with our community and they're willing to provide video to show us being able to track down the next steps of a perpetrator is extremely instrumental in investigation. That's exactly what you saw in this investigation, investigative case. Now, with the information that's come out, the details about. Asyed's background, and he was with the NYPD briefly and then either left or was fired. It's not quite clear exactly. Went into the Marines, didn't make it out of the basic training, then tried to go back to NYPD. When he showed up, they described him, according to the court documents, that he was disheveled, he was disoriented, he wasn't making sense, and then that was the end of that. But when you talk about warning signs and then his own mother, according to the court documents. Said that two years ago, he had threatened to chop her up, her and his sister, like chop them up. And she called 911 because she was that frightened to do it. What about the background of him and were there red flags that might have been missed? And then we come to find out that he's been most recently working as a teacher's aide in an elementary school with little kids. Yeah, there was a lot of different misses. Listen, when you're going through the process in the NYPD, there's a lot of background checks. And one of the things that, unfortunately, that the NYPD has, I'm hearing the somewhat tweaked is taking a look at someone's psychological background issues and seeing if you could see if there's any red flags. But the person is not willing to come forward. At the time frame when he was going through the process, there was only but so much they could do. Wasn't forthcoming or if another candidate is not forthcoming. I believe that there's been some changes in that procedure. But yeah, he kind of slipped through the cracks. He was able to come on the NYPD. He actually just left and then went to the Marines where the psychological issues really began to come to a head. He left the Marines and then came back to the NYPD, which is at that time. We're able to establish that there's something not right here, and that's why he was not able to come back on the NYPD. Now, the concern now is how did he get into the Department of Education and why are we not sharing information with all the city agencies? I want to believe that we're going to take a closer look and make sure going forward there's a better way of streamlining information, communication when it comes to hiring certain candidates for the city of New York. How concerned are you, especially, you know, over your career and to where you are now and where things are now, about the number of cases to the general public? A lot of people say to me, Lisa, these cases of the people that have severe mental issues combined with crime issues, which the psychologists and psychiatrists say is only a small percentage of people with. With severe mental illness, but a dangerous person, a dangerous group, nonetheless, that there's really there's no there's no path forward for either to get them help or to get them away from the public so that they don't cause cause harm or take a life as we as we saw allegedly in this case. Yeah, and that's incumbent on the city managers to take a closer look at, you know, what are we doing regarding people that are going through a mental health crisis and what are we doing to get them the help that they need? And a lot of times what I've seen in the past or my time frame in NYPD, a lot of things were dumped on the on the police department. And I think there needs to be a push to strengthen the mental health. Professions and make sure they're at the forefront. I know the mayor is looking to have them do have a bigger role regarding 911 calls and having them respond instead of the members of the NYPD, depending on the phone call that comes into the 911 dispatcher. But there's something that we need to prioritize. And even though it if it is a small percentage, that small percentage could be very detrimental to taking somebody's life. And that's unfortunately what happened in this situation. And then in terms of the police, when police get a call like this, they get a call from a 911 call comes through from a family member who, you know, who's saying my my son, my nephew, my cousin, my brother or my father, whatever, is acting erratically and they have a knife. What goes through the mind of responding officers? Danger, you know. You know, what are we going to do to make sure we protect everybody involved, including the person that's going through the mental health crisis? You know, you know, unfortunately, you have seen. Too many or we've seen too many videos where a police officer had to use deadly physical force, which is the last thing we want to do. So tactics come into play, dialogue come into play, making sure that there's some form of communication to slow the incident down. Make sure you get the appropriate responding officers there, be it emergency service or maybe even hostage negotiation, depending on the turns that the incident goes to. But yeah, these are the types of jobs that. Make the hair on the neck of the officers that are responding stand up. So it's not a cookie cutter response. Each job can turn to something very, very difficult, very, very dangerous for not just for the police officers, but for the family members that are there that are involved as well. And then we've seen we've seen in some of the cases, a number of cases actually, where the officers tried to use their tasers, but they weren't effective or didn't work. Do you think that officers need more like a little bit more some other type of protection or devices when they're dealing with these these very volatile situations that can just change in a minute? And when they say drop the knife or drop the gun or drop whatever, the person doesn't do it. And as we saw in Times Square with a woman a couple months ago. She just was going right towards them, and they had no choice but to discharge their weapons, according to eyewitnesses, the police commissioner, and pretty much everybody else. But do you think officers need more additional protection or methods or equipment to deal with these situations? Because it just seems like there are more of them now than before, even though crime in a lot of areas is going down. Well, I don't know if there's more. I'm going to challenge that. I think there's a lot more that are being captured on video that are able to be shared to the public. And yes, equipment or better equipment is always something that would be well received by the rank and file in any law enforcement agency. And you got to think about, I'm not sure what time frame tasers come into play, but thank God that we have tasers. And those tasers have stopped multiple, multiple incidents from the cops having to use deadly physical force. But the one thing that people need to understand is, unfortunately, these cops sometimes have to make a split second decision. And at the end of the day, the most important thing is the safety of everybody, including themselves. And sometimes if a nonlethal device is used and it doesn't stop the individual from going forward, then the next step is that has to be used deadly physical force. But anyway, to answer your question, is there... Is there room for better equipment for the men and women that do police work throughout the country? Absolutely, because we've seen too many incidents where mental health situations go the wrong direction. And if the officers had the better equipment, maybe there would not have been a need to use a deadly physical force. And Rodney, before we let you go, the case in the Bronx, it's just broken the hearts of so many people. This boy from Ghana, 15 years old. Been here in the United States for about a year, joined his father who'd been here working and trying to save money as a taxi driver to bring him over. Shot and killed on his way to school. Three suspects, NYPD put out the video right away. There he is, that's 15-year-old Javits Frimpong. And he's definitely, you know, he was there, he was on his way to school. The father said he may have been bullied. The surveillance video was put out, three young men. They said that some people are saying they're teenagers. I don't know how they can tell from just the way they were dressed and covered up. But so far, no arrests in this case. What kinds of obstacles when you have an underage teen and you possibly have underage suspects and a school involved, what kind of challenges does that present to detectives or investigators? Yeah, and first thing, I want to share my condolences for the Frimpong family. I can't imagine how their world has been turned upside down with the loss of their family member. But I will say this, this case is going to be solved sooner than later because there's a lot of investigative steps that were done. There has to be a partnership with the school just for clarification. Uh, the Dream Yard Preparatory School, uh, is in the same building with seven other schools. So there's a, a, a, a situation where, uh, is this something that might extend from the school building and was he being bullied or was it a isolated incident or something else that might occur? And that's why it's so important to get down to the motive of these cases. And then from there, you're able to figure out which direction the investigation needs to go to. So, uh, between I'm sure if you go over in that situation, I'm sure there's crime stopper vehicles over there. I'm sure information is pouring in. This situation has put a hurting onto all of the residents of New York City. And I really believe that someone is going to come forward with the information on the three individuals that were involved and provide something that's going to be able to bring them to justice. No, and absolutely, with that many schools in one building, there's all sorts of potential there. But also, one of the things that came out about this, this was from the current chief of detectives, Joseph Kenny. He said that the shooter or the crew, this three-person group, that they actually cleaned up the crime scene. After the shooting, they picked up the shell casings, they picked up other pieces of evidence or things that may have been used as evidence. Does that tell you any, wearing your detective hat, does that tell you anything about who they might be or how experienced or what they might, you know, does that tell you anything as an investigator? It doesn't. It just tells us that they may be a little bit more mature than we're giving them credit for, for them to be able, for them to be cognizant enough to pick up the brass after a shooting incident leads me to believe that they know this is something that could come back in. Thank Cause them to be apprehended sooner than later. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is probably not the first time that they've been involved in a shooting incident. Once again, because of the detectives in New York City, I am very, very optimistic that there will be an arrest a lot sooner than later. you. And once again, with the cooperation of the community, you're going to see somebody doing a perp walk very, very soon. And you were a big proponent during your career, entire career, in whatever role you were doing in terms of public service and public safety, with emphasizing the importance on the community. Why do you believe that's more than just about making everybody feel good? Well, I think that there needs to be partnerships for a host of different reasons, and when you have partnerships and the community has respect for that local precinct and the men and women that are protecting and serving those communities, you're going to see a level of cooperation. You're going to see people willing to come forward. You're going to see people have trust in the department and be willing to work hand in hand. With the investigators and provide information. That's why it's so instrumental to make sure those relationships are strong. And if there is a situation that one officer might have embarrassed the badge, that people understand not to paint the whole NYPD with a broad brush. Ninety nine point ninety percent of the men and women of the NYPD are doing a very, very terrific job under very, very difficult circumstances. Yeah, and very, very difficult shifts and a lot of a lot of other pressures as well. Rodney Harrison, thank you so much for being with us. Former Suffolk County police commissioner led the task force that solved the Gilgo Beach murders. Former NYPD chief of department and chief of detectives. Thank you so much for being with us on Newsroom Live today. We appreciate it.