Letitia James, the attorney general of New York State, said her office is starting an investigation into the shooting death of a 13-year-old boy in Utica who was reportedly waving a fake gun at police.
A neighborhood vigil for 13-year-old Nyah Mway, who was killed Friday night, was held the day before James’s announcement.
James used a New York state executive rule to explain that her office’s Office of Special Investigation looks into every case where a police officer “may have caused the death of a person by an act or omission.”
Police in Utica (part of the Crime Prevention Unit) stopped two people around 10:18 p.m. Friday as part of an ongoing investigation, according to the Utica Police Department. This is when the shooting happened.
The police say that the 13-year-old, whose name was Nyah Mway, ran away from the cops who were chasing him during the stop. Police say Nyah pointed what looked like a gun at the officers, which made one of them fire one shot at the teen, according to officials.
In a statement, the Utica Department of Public Safety named the three officers as Patrick Husnay, a six-year member of the Utica Police Department who hit the child with his duty weapon. Officers Bryce Patterson, who has been with the police for four years, and Andrew Citriniti, who has been with the department for two and a half years, were also involved in the event. Citriniti used to work for the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office.
The boy was seriously hurt and taken to Wynn Hospital, where police said he was declared dead. Investigators said they found “a replica GLOCK 17 Gen 5 handgun with a detachable magazine” after the killing.
On Saturday, Utica Police Chief Mark Williams told reporters that the fake gun looked like a toy gun. In her statement on Sunday, James said that police found a “BB gun” at the scene.
Our thoughts are with the family of the young person who died and with our officers who were involved in this,” the Utica Police Department said in a statement.
The police shared a video of what happened from Officer Patterson’s body camera.
“As shown in the body-worn camera (BWC) video, Nyah Mway ran away as soon as the police asked to pat him down and searched him. “As he ran away, he pulled out a replica GLOCK pellet gun from the front of his body and pointed it directly at PO Patterson and the other officers between the 51 and 53-second marks on PO Patterson’s BWC,” police said in a statement about the incident.
“As in any Officer Involved Shooting investigation it is within the purview of the NYS Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations to determine whether the shooting violated any state laws; however, we felt it prudent to ensure the entirety of the evidence we have available at this time is shared publicly – keeping with our commitment to transparency,” police said.
At the news conference that Williams and Utica Mayor Michael P. Galime were holding, people shouted at them several times.
My niece Nyah’s uncle, Lay Htoo, told ABC News that he saw the video and that it made him and his family truly sad.
“They make me really sad.” It broke my heart to see one of my nephews get killed, Htoo told ABC News.
Htoo said that his family was from Myanmar and that his nephew had moved to Utica eight years before. Htoo said that Nyah had just finished from middle school.
“My nephew is a great kid.” “This is something he has never done before,” Htoo said.
A neighborhood vigil for Mway took place on Saturday night in the 900 block of Shaw Street. It was about 24 hours after he was shot and killed. A lot of people spoke at the vigil, including Family Members of Mway and other well-known people in the neighborhood.
Williams said that while the New York Attorney General’s Office looks into what happened, the three cops who were involved were put on paid administrative leave.
There will be two investigations into the shooting: one by the AG and one by the Utica Police Department.
“On top of that, we will work openly and closely with the City of Utica Public Safety Advisory Committee.” The police said in a statement, “We value their mission and want to make sure that the community is fully informed of the facts of this incident in several ways.”
Williams said that the police would be giving the public more information and details in the next few days. This would include the body camera video from the incident.
