New Jersey State Police have released multiple videos showing the fatal shooting of Maurice Gordon from Memorial Day weekend during his interaction with police.
I will warn you that the video below, which stitches together portions of all released videos, shows the killing of Gordon after he initiated a struggle against Sergeant Wetzel, a 15-year State Police veteran. So watch at your own risk:
The video runs over 11 minutes because it shows Gordon in multiple interactions with different state troopers at different times of the early morning. If you want to skip ahead to the interaction that resulted in Gordon’s killing, it starts about 3:12.
The initial stop shows a trooper pulling up on Gordon’s car already stranded. I believe he had run out of gas. The officer called a tow truck and left. A tow truck came and next we see Gordon stopped on the side of the road again. A trooper helped push his car off the interstate and called a tow truck and left. Someone offered Gordon a ride, because next we see Gordon in a convenience store getting gas cans. He returned to his vehicle and continues up the interstate.
Less than an hour later Gordon is stopped by a state trooper for going 101 mph. The officer asked Gordon why he was in such a hurry, and it sounded like he said he was trying to get to a very far place. When the officer asked him where is that, it really sounded like he said “the end of a video game”. The officer repeated that exact phrase and then said “what video game, what are you talking about?” Next we see the officer giving Gordon a citation and telling him he’s free to go but not to go over 70 mph, being very nice and respectable the entire time.
A little over 15 minutes later Gordon is stopped again, this time for going over 110 mph. This is the fatal interaction. Gordon apparently turned off his car and could not restart the vehicle after being pulled over. Because it’s 6:30ish in the morning on the interstate, the officer tells Gordon to stay in his vehicle. Gordon gets out and says he’d like to sit in the officer’s vehicle. He was not under arrest. After we see a somewhat confused Gordon having to be guiding to the safe side of the cop car, the video then shows him sitting in the back seat. The officer offers him a mask. Gordon accepts.
A minute or so after that, Gordon exits the police car and attempts to struggle with the officer. We hear the officer say ‘get in the f****** car’. We see through the front windshield the officer tell Gordon again to get in the f****** car, as the officer gets up from his knees. Gordon, unassisted, walks to the rear of the car, shuts the back door and tries to get into the front passenger side of the officer’s vehicle. A struggle ensues again, as the officer will not let him sit in the front of his car. The struggle is seen in the front of the vehicle again, with the officer now telling Gordon to get on the ground. Gordon gets away and proceeds to re-enter the front passenger door again as the officer urgently radios for help. This wasn’t the first time he’d radioed, by the way.
Again the officer struggles to keep Gordon from getting into the vehicle, yelling ‘get the f*** out’ several times. The struggle once again goes back to the front of the vehicle, with the officer seeing fighting Gordon who is behind his back. The next thing we see and hear is the officer turning his gun behind him and shooting Gordon four times in the stomach area. Gordon then falls to the ground.
Having watched the full interaction, it is beyond a shadow of a doubt in my mind that the officer acted appropriately given that his own life was in danger. I don’t know what was wrong with Gordon, whether he was on drugs or if he had psych issues at the time. But in my mind you cannot blame the officer in any way, shape, or form for this. Not even close.
The New York Times wrote about this yesterday, with the headline “A Black Man Is Killed by a Trooper. His Family Wants Answers.” and a subheading “Maurice Gordon, 28, was shot by a white officer after a traffic stop on the Garden State Parkway, two days before the death of George Floyd.”
In their article they say “a former girlfriend told The Pine Barrens Tribune, a South Jersey publication, that [Gordon] was being treated for schizophrenia.” Gordon’s mom, who lives in London, doesn’t think that had anything to do with it, and given the murder of George Floyd by a white cop, she obviously assumed the worst. Hopefully when she sees the video she’ll realize the officer wasn’t at fault and had no choice. Gordon was studying chemistry at Dutchess Community College’s Collegiate Science and Technology, after having came here from Jamaica at age 18.