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On March 3, 2023, at about 7:43 a.m., Paterson police went to an apartment building on Mill Street after a 911 call from Najee Seabrooks, 31, of Paterson. Family members told officers he was hallucinating, acting erratically, and had locked himself in a bathroom with three knives.

Officers spoke with Seabrooks through the locked door and called for an ambulance. He told them people were trying to kill him and later said he had knives and a gun he called a "pocket rocket." Crisis negotiators and Emergency Response Team members responded.

After officers had not heard from him for a time and a broken water pipe flooded the apartment, they breached part of the bathroom door. They saw Seabrooks holding knives and told him to put them down. He did not comply. He later started a fire in the bathroom and threw items at officers, including liquid that injured one officer's eye and part of a toilet lid that injured another officer's ankle area.

ERT members Hector Mendez, Qiao Lin, and Mario Vdovjak deployed less lethal sponge tipped projectiles between about 11:00 a.m. and noon. Several struck Seabrooks, but he did not drop the knives. Officers also saw him harming himself with the knives.

At about 12:35 p.m., Seabrooks came out of the bathroom and approached officers with at least one knife in his hand. Officers Anzore Tsay and Jose Hernandez fired, and Seabrooks fell into a bedroom. Two knives were recovered next to him, and a third knife was later found in a utility closet.

Emergency medical personnel treated Seabrooks at the scene. He was taken to Saint Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson and pronounced dead at 12:51 p.m. A state grand jury later voted not to file criminal charges against Officers Tsay and Hernandez.

Listen to the 911 calls and dispatch audio for this incident here.