Prominent New Jersey activists came out to support the family of Bernard Placide Jr., the 22-year-old who was killed Sept. 3, 2022, by members of the Englewood, New Jersey, police department (EPD).
This past Monday, June 5, Placide’s family announced that they have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Englewood with the aid of their attorney, Eric Kleiner.
When Placide grabbed a kitchen knife and raged out against family members last September, his mother, Myrlene Laurince, called 911 for assistance. Bernard had cut his mother, his stepfather, Obed Hilaire, and his grandfather.
As police arrived, Placide went into his bedroom. The family claims officers used excessive force against Placide because even though he had retreated to his room, they went to retrieve him with their guns drawn. The family’s lawsuit claims EPD officers were obligated and trained to de-escalate the situation. Instead, Officer Brian Havlick tasered and then Officer Luana Sharpe shot Placide.
“Officer [Luanna] Sharpe, in a heinous and indefensible spontaneous act that proves Sharpe had immediate and unvarnished consciousness of guilt, failed to render any medical aid to Bernard, and instead callously and capriciously fled the scene ignoring her first responder duties as a police officer, leaving Bernard for dead; stopping and delaying Bernard from receiving treatment in a life and death moment,” the lawsuit claims.
Because Sharpe ran out of the room after shooting Placide, her fellow officers handcuffed him and searched him for weapons. Placide’s family said this delayed his being transported immediately to the hospital and lowered his chances of survival.
Scott T. Jenkins, a former Englewood police officer who now serves as vice president of the North Jersey Black Caucus for Social Justice, said that two months after shooting and killing Placide, Sharpe was promoted to detective. “She never lost a day’s pay other than if she was on some type of administrative leave initially, but they didn’t require her to take any time off,” Jenkins told the AmNews. “Not only that, but Englewood themselves cleared her before the Attorney General’s office cleared her. She’s in there working now.”
Lawrence Hamm, chair of People’s Organization for Progress (P.O.P.), called the federal lawsuit an essential step for accountability. “…left to their own devices, this police department, the local government, and other institutions would not attempt to achieve justice for Bernard Placide. They have shown us what they would do. What they would do is promote the person that killed him and attempt to defame his name and ignore the injustice that has taken place.”
In naming EPD Officers Luanna Sharpe, Brian Havlicek, and Langie Fernandez, Kleiner claimed, “Each one of them, at different times, had a duty and responsibility to intervene to stop the escalation of what would have been a minor incident and Bernard would have been here today had it not been for these officers.”
“It’s pretty much indicative of the experience that Black folks have suffered here in the United States of America,” said Englewood-based activist Rick Whilby. “Brother Hamm talked about New Jersey, but it’s also nationwide here in this country. Bernard should be alive today. This is an inexcusable act.
“The Englewood Police Department has two [separate] fraternal organizations, and we all know that a house divided cannot stand: If the police are fighting amongst themselves, if young Black officers are afraid to report racist white officers, we know we have a problem.”
Activist and organizer Zayid Muhammad noted that the lack of support for Placide’s family has been shameful—few of Englewood’s politicians or community leaders have come to Placide’s mother, Myrlene Laurince, and offered condolences about what happened to her son.
“What should have happened is that they all should have condemned that. What should have happened is that they all should have passed a resolution calling for a federal investigation into the Englewood Police Department and (called) for a federal consent decree to clean up this police department and its racism and its crimes. That’s what should have happened. That’s what leadership looks like. That’s what unity looks like. That’s what principle looks like, but that didn’t happen.”
Rev. Herbert Daughtry, 92, spoke of being a part of the struggle to end police killings of Black people for the past 70 years. He remembered attending rallies in 1967 in Harlem, 1969 in Brooklyn, and 1970 in Staten Island. He recalled the April 1973 shooting of 10-year-old Clifford Glover in South Jamaica, Queens; the shooting of 14-year-old Claude Reese Jr. in Brownsville in 1974; and the June 1978 police choking of Arthur Miller in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “And on and on and on we could go,” Daughtry said. “But we’re here to comfort the families.”