Photo by Jordan Coll | SOC Images.
Andrew Washington, 52, was in the midst of a mental health crisis when his family made what they thought was the right call—they reached out to a mental-health hotline for help.
Instead of receiving trained crisis responders, he was met with a brazen line of police in riot gear who waited for nearly half an hour outside his Jersey City home on Aug. 27, 2023. After a brief standoff, officers broke down the door. When Washington emerged holding a knife, they shot him with both a gun and a taser.
What began as a plea for support ended in tragedy, leaving his loved ones searching for answers and seeking restorative justice, despite the recent verdict taken by a grand jury, which declined to file criminal charges against Officer Stephen Gigante, the trained negotiator who fired the fatal shots that killed Andrew Washington.
The Fight For “Justice For Drew” Continues
Fast forward nearly two years later, a press conference was held last Thursday where Slice of Culture and several news outlets saw family members of Andrew Washington speak out against the recent verdict by the grand jury.
“Drew’s death was not inevitable. It was preventable, and it was not isolated. What happened to Drew happens far too often to black men and women across the United States, and especially in New Jersey,” said Toni Ervin, his aunt.
“These fatal outcomes of systems are symptoms of a deep-rooted violent system, one that criminalizes black bodies, particularly in moments of vulnerability,” she added.
She spoke to Slice of Culture on a phone interview, criticizing the city’s quick justification of the police action and the lack of a negotiator on site at her nephew’s apartment.
“I felt Drew’s rights were violated in so many ways, and standing up against the threat to our civil rights was really the message I had,” said Ervin.
She recalled some of her warmest memories with her nephew, when she would cook fried fish and he would come right over.
She also mentioned the failure of Jersey City Medical Center to secure a $2 million grant for mental health programs, which was awarded to Pamela Johnson of the Anti-Violence Coalition instead. The case is pending litigation, with the Attorney General’s office handling the investigation.
Washington’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Aug. 21, 2024 against the Jersey City Police Department, Jersey City Medical Center, and Hudson County, accusing them of violating his constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The complaint accuses officers of neglecting standard de-escalation protocols, a failure the family says led to the outcome of his death and violated his civil rights.
“Drew’s tragic death was entirely preventable. The risk that encounters between law enforcement and community members experiencing mental health crises may escalate into the unnecessary use of deadly force is well known,” according to the lawsuit.
Courtnie Washington, the sister of the deceased and administrator of his estate, claims Jersey City police ignored established protocols for handling individuals with mental health conditions and that medical professionals failed to provide proper care.
According to Andrew Washington’s family, they called a mental health hotline seeking trained responders for Washington, who had bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and psychosis. Instead, untrained paramedics and a heavily armed “SWAT-like” unit were dispatched.
In the wake of a grand jury’s decision, the family’s attorney, Amelia Green, indicated at the presser that the family had filed a Civil Rights lawsuit in federal court, seeking damages in what the family alleges could have been a “preventable death.”
With the grand jury presentment now concluded, the case is clear to proceed, said Green, in which they can now expect access to critical evidence that had been withheld, including body camera footage showing some of the officers’ interactions with Washington.
“The Attorney General’s Office investigation has lagged on for over a year and a half, and during that time, the scope and bounds of the investigation have been kept secret from the family,” she said.
In a response to a question asked by Slice of Culture during the presser, related to the medical records of Andrew Washington–who was pronounced deceased less than an hour after the tragic encounter–the family’s attorney said they haven’t been able to access it.
“The Jersey City Medical Center, to date, has completely blocked us from even receiving complete medical records on Drew. Why? We do not know,” said Green at the presser.
“Nothing about the decision not to criminally prosecute these officers changes that fact.”
What’s Been Done Since Then?
The deaths of Washington and Paterson activist Najee Seabrooks, 31, as previously reported by Slice of Culture, experienced a similar mental health scenario, in which he was killed in a fatal shooting by Paterson police officers–became a catalyst for legislative action, prompting the creation of the Seabrooks-Washington Community-Led Crisis Response Act signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy in January 2024. The measure establishes a two-year pilot program to support community-led, non-emergency crisis response teams.
In this program, the state announced that $12 million would be made available to establish the CCRT Crisis Response Team Pilot Program. Breaking this down: $2 million would be distributed to each municipality through a grant application.
“We do not have the funds right now from the Office of Attorney General,” Founder and Executive Director for the Anti-Violence Coalition of Hudson County Pamela Johnson told Slice of Culture in an interview.
Johnson, whose coalition is one of the county’s grant recipients, added that the organization has an office on Martin Luther King Drive in Jersey City that remains closed due to a lack of funding.
“Just like any other grant, there are budgets to be revised, there are things that need to happen and unfortunately those things took a long time.”
More Than A Statistic
Police encounters in the U.S. frequently turn deadly.
Since 2015, officers have fatally shot over 5,000 people, with Black individuals dying at more than twice the rate of their white counterparts, as indicated by a report titled, “To Protect and Serve: Investing in Public Safety Beyond Policing,” figures coming from the New Jersey Policy Perspective–a nonpartisan think tank.
Since 2015, at least 86 people have died in fatal encounters with police in New Jersey, with Black individuals accounting for 48 percent of those deaths, despite making up only 15 percent of the state’s population, in tandem with the findings of the report.
According to the bill signed by the governor last year, Black residents in New Jersey are killed by police at a rate 8.3 times higher than White residents.
“We were angry, we were disappointed, but our resolve still remains,” said Edward Perkins, an advocate and community activist who spoke to Slice of Culture in an interview, emphasizing the need for better police training and what he phrased as a better “trauma informed care response,” when it comes to anti-violence at the wake of police force.
“But what responsibility does the city have to the public from members who experience a mental health crisis? And we just have not seen a change in any policy or funding commitments,” he added, referring to the city’s lack of response when it comes to law enforcement handling of mental health crisis-led scenarios.
As of May 2025, the most recent data on fatal police encounters involving individuals with mental health crises comes from a 2024 study analyzing 633 fatal police shootings across 27 U.S. states, according to datasets by the National Library of Medicine, an institute based in Maryland and affiliated with the National Institutes of Health.
The study found that 32 percent of these incidents involved victims exhibiting signs of a mental health crisis at the time of their death.
Notably, in three out of four cases, the mental health crisis manifested as suicidal ideation, often communicated to family members who subsequently called the police. Dispatch was reportedly aware of the mental health crisis in 25 percent of these calls.
“This is what happens when you dehumanize a certain segment of the population,” said Jersey City Ward F Councilman Frank Gilmore.“Because the reality is that this could have happened to someone else, somewhere else, the sympathy would have been there.”
When it comes to Andrew Washington’s case, the city has remained afar.
“The loss of anyone’s life is tragic, and even as the grand jury found no wrongdoing by the officers, the city remains committed to improving services while ensuring public safety,” said Jersey City’s Press Secretary Kimberely Wallace-Scalcione.
“Even with Jersey City’s participation in ARRIVE Together and the investments in crisis response, situations with potential violence-like this one-are still handled by police first, which remains standard practice nationwide.”
What Could Be Done
In a statewide effort to remedy the mental health response crisis in tandem with law enforcement’s approach to these cases, the state attorney general’s office launched a program called ARRIVE Together which stands for Alternative Responses to Reduce Instances of Violence and Escalation, a program that pairs mental health professionals with law enforcement officers on emergency calls.
Advocates and community leaders who spoke to Slice of Culture indicate these programs have the potential to succeed—if they can coordinate responses effectively, ensure individuals in crisis receive the support they need and ultimately save lives.
The Paterson Healing Collective and Reimagining Justice Inc. intend to use their portion of the grant funding awarded through the Seabrooks-Washington Community-Led Crisis Response Act. Passed in January, the act allocates $2 million to organizations that train community members to respond to mental health emergencies.
The national 988 mental health hotline is also expanding its reach, offering access to specialized mobile response teams trained to handle psychiatric emergencies. Meanwhile, several hospitals across the state continue to operate their own crisis hotlines, dispatching emergency medical teams directly to those in need.
These statistics underscore the urgent need for systemic reforms, including improved training for law enforcement officers, the implementation of crisis intervention programs and the establishment of alternative response systems to ensure that individuals experiencing mental health crises receive appropriate care and support.
“So I’m not shocked, because we can’t expect justice to come out of institutions that have long standing history of oppressing Black people, of subjugating Black people and using the police state to murder, disarm and imprison Black people, so I’m outraged, but I’m not shocked,” said Nev Perkins, who is a community leader and activist with Build More Unity.
In an interview with Slice of Culture, he emphasized the need for grassroots mobilization, as seen in the conviction of Derek Chauvin, and called for police to be deprioritized in mental health crises, advocating for community-based health professionals and grassroots initiatives. He also mentioned the federal conviction in the Tyre Nichols case and called for justice and freedom for political prisoners.
“It is a health issue. Not a policing issue and we need trained health professionals through violence intervention, community-based initiatives, and people that are actually out here experiencing the issues firsthand.”
One Response
i live in the community that that men was shot and i am dealing with injustices myself i didn’t get anything till this day but yet this men’s family rec. 2million in a judgment i feel this is unfair because there are other family that been struggling for years i think they should let this men rest in peace and help others with that grant