It took five months for the police to acknowledge their mistake after posting pictures of 16-year-old Camden Lee on social media and claiming he was wanted for the shooting.
The New York Police Department issued an apology on February 9, 2025, for falsely accusing a teenager of a deadly shooting at a Brooklyn parade last year. The department also refused to withdraw the accusation for months after privately acknowledging its mistake.
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It took five months for the police to acknowledge their mistake after posting pictures of 16-year-old Camden Lee on social media and claiming he was wanted for the shooting.
The New York Police Department issued an apology on February 9, 2025, for falsely accusing a teenager of a deadly shooting at a Brooklyn parade last year. The department also refused to withdraw the accusation for months after privately acknowledging its mistake.
Following months of pleading with the family of 16-year-old Camden Lee and reporters, who said the police “almost immediately” acknowledged their error, the apology was issued. However, it would be almost five months before the department would openly admit that their September claim, which was later discreetly taken down from social media, was false.
The police recently released a statement claiming that it had unintentionally uploaded Mr. Lee’s photo online as someone who “was wanted for the fatal shooting” at the West Indian American Day Parade, which takes place every September on and near Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway. A sizable gathering of revelers became terrified after the gunshot, which left one person dead and four others wounded. No one has been charged by the police in relation to the incident.
Although Mr. Lee was not specifically named in the department’s apologies, it did state that the individual in the shared photo had been a person of interest rather than a suspect. A “person of interest” is a wide word that can refer to anyone the police believe could have information that could be helpful in an investigation.
According to the department’s statement, “The N.Y.P.D. identified a person of interest who was on the scene before, during and after the incident, which is supported by video evidence and witness accounts.” Instead of stating that he was a person of interest, “Social media posts in September mistakenly stated that he was wanted for the fatal shooting.”
The statement added, “The N.Y.P.D. should have immediately corrected this misstatement.”
“We apologize for the error and will continue to seek justice for the victims of this shooting.”
A plea for an explanation of why the police took so long to rectify their remarks on Mr. Lee was not immediately answered.
Wylie M. Stecklow, Mr. Lee’s attorney, blasted the apology on February 10, 2025, for failing to do more to recognize the suffering his client had suffered as a result of the false charge and for still referring to him as a person of interest.
Mr. Stecklow stated, “They say he is a person of interest because he was in this location before, during, and after the shooting, but so were thousands of other people.” He added, “To a layperson, that sounds like he still did something wrong.”
“The police need to make a full-throated apology and need to make it clear how this happened,” Mr. Stecklow continued. “There is no explanation as to how a minor who is not a suspect in a murder has his pictures released on social media, and why for months they failed to retract it.”
According to his attorney, Mr. Lee had been at the parade with companions when the shooting occurred on September 2.
The Police Department incorrectly claimed that he had “discharged a firearm” at the parade and was wanted for the shooting when they uploaded his photo to Instagram and X on September 19.
Only after seeing the social media post did Mr. Lee discover that his photo had been released online by the police. A few days later, when detectives informed his family that he was not a suspect, he met with the police and engaged an attorney, Mr. Stecklow said.
In the months that followed, the police took Mr. Lee’s picture off from their social media pages and refused to file charges against him. However, they didn’t take back or explain their original accusations against him. According to Mr. Stecklow, Mr. Lee’s family’s life was completely upended in that void. Earlier this month, Mr. Lee told the reporters. that the charge against him “takes me to a dark place.”
“I don’t feel like myself anymore,” he told The reporters “I don’t have the opportunity to explain my side of the story. Everyone is so fixed on this one image of me: murderer.”
Mr. Stecklow claimed that his family fled New York City for three weeks after the police initially publicized Mr. Lee’s photo due to death threats he claimed they received. He missed school as a result, as did two of his siblings.
According to Mr. Stecklow, the Police Department initially offered a reward for information in the high-profile, deadly shooting of a healthcare executive in Midtown Manhattan before announcing one in December that would lead to the arrest of a suspect in the parade shooting.
Mr. Stecklow claimed that although the police did not mention Mr. Lee, amateur investigators once again released his photo online as a result of the incentive announcement since the department’s original mistake had never been fixed. According to Mr. Stecklow, that led to Mr. Lee’s mother leaving the city with him once more for a few weeks.
Chee Chee Brock, the mother of Mr. Lee, said in a statement that since the Police Department’s first error, her life has “completely changed.”
According to the statement, Ms. Brock, whose eldest son graduated from the police academy in October, felt that it was crucial to “raising my kids right and to be respectful of law enforcement.”
“But now,” she added. “I am fearful that the N.Y.P.D., or someone who thinks my child has harmed someone they care about, can take my child from me, and it really just makes me very afraid.”
