Family of mentally ill New York man shot by police demands answers



NEW YORK – A New York family is demanding answers after their mentally ill adult son was shot just outside their home, saying he needs to be evaluated and helped.

Michael Cordero's father said he is still numb with disbelief that police shot his son after they made a 911 call for help Tuesday night.

“He kept saying 'I didn’t deserve this,'” Salvador Cordero told a news conference of reporters Thursday.

From surveillance video released by the NYPD, Cordero is seen aiming what turned out to be a wallet at police, after police said he announced he had a gun.

Police fired at Cordero, hitting him in the hip; he sustained a non-life-threatening injury.


“This family is demanding the NYPD release body cam video that exists, in addition to the video that was released by police yesterday,” Sanford Rubenstein, the Cordero family lawyer, said at the news conference. Cordero’s family said police in the 28th precinct knew that the 34-year-old suffered from schizophrenia and was bipolar, and that they told this information to police when they called for help.

There is also an order of protection prohibiting Cordero from visiting his family’s building after two arrests in December. The family said they never requested the order, though.

"We never wanted an order of protection. It was imposed on us,” Cordero said. “We wanted Michael evaluated and put in a hospital.”

Police said they were responding to a 911 call for a man with a gun, and not an emotionally disturbed person, and that all proper police protocols were followed.

They have not yet said when they will release body-cam video from the police officers at the scene of the shooting.