Mother of man fatally shot by Nassau police files wrongful death lawsuit

The mother of a carjacking suspect whom Nassau police fatally shot in Queens has filed a civil rights lawsuit against Nassau County and its police department, alleging officers opened fire on the 19-year-old without reason after approaching him in his car while he was unarmed.

The federal complaint, filed Feb. 8 in New York’s Eastern District, alleges Matthew Felix was a victim of racial profiling and excessive force. It seeks a jury trial and unspecified monetary damages for his alleged wrongful death in February 2020 near his family’s home in Cambria Heights in Queens.

Nassau police exited their vehicle with guns drawn as they approached Felix’s stopped vehicle and began shooting "without reason or provocation," causing his death, the complaint says. It adds that Felix "was not carrying a weapon, and at no time displayed or pointed a weapon at any officer."

Queens attorney Martin Seinfeld, one of the lawyers who filed the complaint for the deceased's mother, Guerlyne Felix, said Thursday that an autopsy showed three bullets hit the 19-year-old, one in each of his legs and another in his chest.

He said the Felix family is frustrated that authorities have released scant information about the Feb. 25, 2020 shooting nearly a year later, including the names of officers who opened fire.

"A 19-year-old kid, even if he has committed wrong, has a right to live. The police can’t be gun-happy," Seinfeld said.

The attorney added about Matthew Felix that while he "can’t speak with any authority whether or not he did commit a carjacking," no information had been released indicating the police shooting was justified.

"We are unable to comment due to pending litigation," Nassau police spokesman Det. Lt. Richard LeBrun said Thursday after a Newsday inquiry with police and county officials about the lawsuit.

A spokeswoman for State Attorney General Letitia James said Thursday that the police shooting remains under investigation by her office. The agency took over the probe under a 2015 governor’s directive that allowed the state officials to step in because a civilian who was either unarmed or may have been unarmed died after police used deadly force.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said in a media briefing after the shooting that the encounter was a "police-involved shooting that resulted in a loss of life," but declined to say if Felix was armed at the time.

He also didn’t provide details of the circumstances that led police to shoot or say how many officers opened fire, saying the NYPD and Queens district attorney’s office had investigations underway at that time.

Ryder said the shooting happened hours after a Nassau resident tried to sell a Mercedes-Benz on social media and met Felix in a parking lot on Jericho Turnpike in Garden City Park. Felix pointed a black gun at the victim’s head and told him to get out of the Mercedes before fleeing in the car, according to the commissioner.

Police were able to track the Mercedes to Felix’s home while gathering information on the carjacking suspect, as Bureau of Special Operations officers "maintained a surveillance on the residence and stolen vehicle," he said.

Ryder said the officers were told the Mercedes owner had identified Felix as the alleged carjacker and that Felix had a criminal record that included a pending charge of possessing a loaded gun in Queens.

Before the shooting, the officers tried to arrest Felix after he left his home and got into a car that wasn’t the stolen vehicle, according to Nassau police. Ryder wouldn’t say if Felix was driving when police opened fire.

Seinfeld said he is seeking an unedited version of an area surveillance video some media outlets broadcast after the shooting that captured at least part of the encounter. It appeared to show a car driving up on a sidewalk towards at least one plainclothes officer before crashing and multiple plainclothes officers firing guns at the car.

The shooting sparked a protest in March in front of Nassau police headquarters, along with a rally in August that marked the six-month anniversary of Felix’s death where participants gathered in Nassau before forming a caravan of cars that traveled to Cambria Heights.

Then they gathered at the shooting scene near 217th Street and Linden Boulevard, chanting "Justice for Matthew Felix," "No Justice, No Peace" and "Black Lives Matter."

Activists spoke then of Felix’s death as a local example of what they called a long pattern of Black people dying after encounters with police, including George Floyd in Minneapolis. The unarmed Black man’s death last May at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked protests across the country, including on Long Island, and became a focal point of a subsequent national reckoning on issues of race and unequal justice.