Family of 13-year-old boy shot and killed by Utica, New York, police demands accountability

The family of one 13-year-old boy shot dead by police Friday in downtown New York, demanding justice and accountability.

The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating the shooting of Myanmar-born Nyah Mway, a member of the Karen ethnic minority. Utica police said officers wrestled the teen to the ground and then shot him after a chase Friday.

Police, who are conducting their own investigation, released body camera video showing a youth appearing to point an object at them before taking him to the ground. The object was a BB gun that looked like a real firearm, police said.

As official investigations continued, Nyah Mway’s family and outraged community members demanded accountability for the teenager’s death.

“We finally came to the United States to get education and get good jobs here,” hoping for a peaceful life after decades of conflict and violence in Myanmar, said Lay Htoo, who introduced as one of Nyah’s cousins, to the Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The teenager’s parents waited for medical examiners to return his body and wondered what would happen to the police.

“They want them to stay in prison forever,” the cousin said.

At a vigil Saturday night, Nyah Mway’s brother, Lah, said through an interpreter that he would not be satisfied until the officers “are put in jail,” Syracuse reported. com.

Others at the vigil questioned the official version of the shooting.

“None of this makes any sense,” said Kay Klo, one of the people at the meeting.

Police say Nyah Mway and another 13-year-old boy were arrested Friday evening because they matched the descriptions of suspects in an armed robbery that occurred the day before in the same area. Police said one of them was also walking in the road, in violation of state traffic laws.

Body camera video shows an officer saying he has to search them for any weapons. While officers were questioning the teens, one of them – later identified as Nyah Mway – ran away, turned around and appeared to point a black object at them.

Officer Bryce Patterson caught up to Nyah Mway, tackled him and punched him, and as the two wrestled on the ground, Officer Patrick Husnay opened fire, body camera video showed. Utica Police Chief Mark Williams said at a news conference Saturday that the single shot struck the youth in the chest.

The teenager was taken to Wynn Hospital, where he died of his injuries.

Police said the object the boy was holding was later found to be a pellet gun that closely resembled a Glock 17 Gen 5 pistol with a detachable magazine. Police released an image showing that the device did not have the orange stripe on the barrel that many pellet gun manufacturers have added in recent years to distinguish their products from firearms.

A witness video posted on Facebook and obtained by CBS News also shows an officer tackling and punching the teen as two other officers arrived, and then a gunshot rings out as the teen is on the ground.

Regarding the video, police said in a statement that they were “aware of a video of the incident circulating on social media platforms, which does not depict the incident in its entirety.”

Husnay, Patterson and Officer Andrew Citriniti have been placed on paid administrative leave as the investigation progresses.

Under New York state law, the attorney general’s office investigates every death involving law enforcement. The Utica Police Department’s investigation, meanwhile, will examine whether officers followed policies and training.

The police chief called the shooting “a tragic and traumatic incident for everyone involved.”

To Nyah’s cousin, Isabella Moo, however, the police speech seemed like “an attempt to criminalize him even more and try to protect the police.”

“This situation should not have gotten to this point, and our police officers need to be trained much better or differently,” she told the AP in a telephone interview. “The city needs to be held accountable, and this should not have been done to a child.”

Utica’s population of 65,000 includes more than 4,200 people from Myanmar, according to The Center, a nonprofit group that helps resettle refugees.

The Karen are among the groups at war with the military rulers of Myanmar, a Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma. The military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that demanded a return to democratic rule.

Nyah’s family fled Myanmar about two decades ago to Thailand, where Nyah was born in a refugee camp, and then immigrated to the United States through a resettlement program about nine years ago, Htoo said. He said the teen’s father worked at a convenience store.

Htoo said Nyah enjoyed math, soccer and spending time with his friends when he wasn’t looking after his younger siblings. Interested in learning, he sometimes attended Bible studies with his friends, even though his family members are Buddhist, his cousin said.

The cousin said he was told that on Friday evening the boy had informed his mother that he was going to a store to buy something, and that was the last time she saw him.

She hasn’t slept since, except for ten-minute naps, her tears starting up again every time she wakes up, he said.