The family of an emotio🍌nally disturbed African immigrant who cops shot and killed at his Harlem home last year slapp🌞ed the city on Monday with a lawsuit seeking an injunction that would require the NYPD to implement new protocols for dealing with the mentally ill.
“I miss my son like no one can imagine,” said Hawa Bah, mother of the late Mohamed Bah, during a conference outside Manhattan fe🙈deral court. “I need justice for my so🔯n. He did nothing wrong.”
The Guinean immigrant was killed last September after his mother—who was visiting from overseas for his 28th birthday – called 9-1-1 to get him medical help beca🦂use he battling severe depression.
“I was expecting an ambulance to come. I didn’t call police,” she said. “They said not to worry.”
The NYPD has previously defended the shooting, saying Mohamed Bah was only shot because he charged at them naked with a butcher knife and used it to slash two cops’ bulletproof vests.
Lawyers for the family said a grand jury would be empanelled next month to consider criminal charges against the officers involved – each of whom the NYPD has refused to identify. The suit also seeks unspecified damages and “referral” to the court-appointed monitor who was designated in the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk case “to oversee the reform process” – even though stop-and-frisk was not involved in the shooting.
“For years, the NYPD has failed to deliver an effective system for dealing with the emotionally disturbed,” said one of the family’s lawyers, Randolph McLaughlin. “With the story oᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚf Mohamed Bah, we must hold public servants accountable for the senseless deaths caused by an outright failure to protect and serve.”
The city Law Department did not immediately respond to a request for ꦕcomment.