Indictment Sought in NYPD Shooting

Prosecutors said Tuesday that they planned to ask a grand jury to indict a police officer in the weekend shooting death of an unarmed high school student at a Brooklyn housing project.

Timothy Stansbury Jr., 19, and two friends were on their way to a party early Saturday when they encountered two officers on patrol, with guns drawn, in a rooftop stairwell at the Louis Armstrong Houses, detectives said. The police and youths were on opposite sides of the staircase door, pushing and pulling, when it opened. For some reason, Officer Richard Neri, an 11-year NYPD veteran, fired his gun once, hitting Stansbury in the chest.

Stansbury, who was black, was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The two officers involved in the incident are white.

Just hours after the shooting, New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly labeled it apparently unjustified -- a position the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Assn. has called a rush to judgment.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and other city officials quickly visited the victim’s family to offer condolences in what could be a politically volatile case. The family has charged that the officer opened fire without provocation and without warning.

“In the next day or so, we should begin presenting evidence to a grand jury,” Brooklyn district attorney spokesman Jerry Schmetterer said Tuesday.

He said possible charges could range from criminally negligent homicide, which carries a penalty of four years in prison, to manslaughter, which could result in a 15-year term.

Neri’s lawyer, Stuart London, said in an interview Tuesday that he was “leaning in the direction” of having his client testify.

“There is no one else up there who can put the state of mind of the police officer before the grand jury,” he explained. “There are certain issues, how they play out.”

And Kelly’s statement that the shooting wasn’t justified, London said, had raised the issue of whether Neri was being treated fairly.

Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Assn., agreed, accusing the police commissioner Tuesday of offering an opinion “before all the facts are in.”

Veteran lawyers and law enforcement officials said the grand jury’s decision whether or not to indict Neri probably would turn on the officer’s testimony.

Key issues could include whether Neri perceived he was in danger at the time of the shooting and whether complicating factors such as darkness could have affected his judgment at the top of the staircase.

Vertical patrols, which require officers to climb stairs from the lobby to the roof, of housing projects are thought of as a particularly dangerous part of police work. In such areas where drug sales and violent crime are not uncommon, officers often patrol with their guns drawn.

Kelly said the Police Department had formed a special panel to examine possible revisions of tactics and training procedures after Stansbury’s death.