Bodycam – NYPD shoots Rameek Smith in the Bronx. Justified fatal police shooting? YOU decide.

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realcrimecams.com

New York, New York - Body cam video, released on September 2, 2022, nearly four months after the shooting, fails to confirm the NYPD version of the story – that Rameek Smith, 25, fired a gun at officers, wounding one and prompting the police to use lethal force. It doesn’t clearly show Smith shooting at police, nor an officer getting hit in the arm. And it doesn’t depict officers finding the victim’s weapon that they said was found at the scene. According to the NYPD account of the incident, on May 10, 2022, at about 10:45 p.m. on Bathgate Avenue, two officers together fired 19 shots “during a confrontation with an armed subject.” Smith allegedly fired three shots at the officers with a weapon he was carrying illegally, police said, hitting Officer Dennis Vargas once in the left arm and prompting the officers to return fire and hit Smith in the head. Smith later died at the hospital. Vargas, 32, was treated and released for his gunshot wound. The body cam video shows Vargas exiting his unmarked police vehicle and approaching Smith, who appears to be walking down the sidewalk. There is no audio at this point. Smith runs away, and a foot chase through traffic ensues. Seconds later, the audio clicks in and an officer’s gun appears in the frame. Shots are fired. The video then abruptly ends. In the course of his eight-year NYPD career, Vargas has faced 39 complaints through the Civilian Complaint Review Board, with 12 of them substantiated.