Family Demands Zeldin Remove Ad Showing Unarmed Mentally Ill Man Killed By New York City Cops In 2018

Gothamist reports:

The family of Saheed Vassell, a man killed by the NYPD in 2018, is pleading with Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Lee Zeldin to remove footage of Vassell’s final moments from Zeldin’s first major television advertisement.

Vassell’s family said the use of the video has caused his relatives “terrible pain and suffering.” A narrator tells the audience it is “looking at actual crimes caught on camera in Kathy Hochul’s New York,” before telling people to “vote like your life depends on it — it just might.”

But in the case of Vassell, 34, he wasn’t holding a gun. It was 2018, three years before Hochul became governor and he was in the middle of a mental health crisis on the streets of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, , wielding what turned out to be a metal piece from a gas tank.

Read the full article. The clip is so violent that YouTube requires an age-check to view it.