Officer Won't Be Charged in Fatal Shooting of Boy Who Had Pellet Gun
The killing of the boy, Nyah Mway, sparked outrage last year in Utica, particularly among its community of Karen refugees from Myanmar, a group to which Nyah belonged. Refugee families make up roughly one-quarter of Utica's population of 60,000, and more than half of those refugees are Karen.
On the evening of June 28, three officers — Bryce Patterson, Patrick Husnay and Andrew Citriniti — approached Nyah and a friend because they matched the physical description of teenagers wanted in connection with a series of armed robberies in the area, prosecutors said.
The police began to question the boys, but Nyah ran away when an officer asked if he could pat him down to search for weapons, according to a report released on Wednesday by the attorney general's Office of Special Investigation.
Officer Patterson followed Nyah, who pulled what appeared to be a black handgun out of his coat and pointed it at the officer's chest, the report said. The officer tackled the boy, sending them both crashing onto the sidewalk, although Nyah did not loosen his grip on the weapon.
As the boy lay on the sidewalk, Officer Husnay 'leaned over and fired a single shot into Nyah Mway's chest at close range,' the report said. He was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead.
The gun was later determined to be a pellet gun, although the report said it had been designed to look like a handgun. It was metal, painted matte black and had the Glock insignia stamped on both sides of it. It also had the words 'Officially Licensed Product of Glock' printed on the handle.
'Under these circumstances, given the law and the evidence, a prosecutor would not be able to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial that the officer's use of deadly physical force against Mway was justified,' the attorney general, Letitia James, said in a statement.
Nyah's family said in a statement that they were still reviewing the findings, but that 'no report — no matter how thorough — can ease the grief of losing a 13-year-old child who brought so much joy to our lives and to our community.'
'Nyah was a bright, funny and loving boy who had already overcome so much in his short life,' the statement said. 'Our family fled violence and persecution, seeking peace in the United States. We believed Utica to be a city that welcomed refugees. But on June 28, 2024, that belief was shattered.'
Nyah's killing was the first time that a Karen person in the United States was killed by the police, Utica's mayor, Michael P. Galime, said at a meeting after the shooting.
The Office of Special Investigation said in its report that investigators had compiled their account of the events leading up to Nyah's death by interviewing the officers and reviewing footage from their body-worn cameras, as well as by reviewing cellphone video filmed by a witness.
Images from those videos, released on Wednesday, show the boy pulling what appears to be a handgun from his coat and pointing it at the police.
In a joint statement on Wednesday, Mr. Galime and Utica's police chief, Mark Williams, said they were 'happy there can be some closure for the greater Utica community' over Nyah's death, which they described as 'tragic.'
'Since that night we have tirelessly sought to build back the relationships and trust with the Burmese and Karen communities,' they said. 'We are saddened that this tragedy ever had to occur, but we hope now we can all heal together and build the bridges that are needed.'
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