Randolph Evans (1961–1976) was a 15-year-old ninth-grade boy at

Franklin K. Lane High School Franklin K. Lane High School (FKLHS) was a public high school in New York City, New York (state), New York, United States. It began as a combined junior-senior high school in 1923 and moved into its current building in 1937. In 2012, it was shut d ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He was shot and killed by

NYPD The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

officer Robert Torsney on November 25, 1976.

Shooting

Thanksgiving Day Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden a ...

1976, responding to a report of a man with a gun in the Cypress Hills

housing projects Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

, Officer Robert Torsney encountered a group of youths. After a brief conversation, Torsney shot one of them, Evans, point-blank in the head. After shooting Evans, Torsney made no effort to check the boy’s condition but instead walked to his patrol car, got in, removed the spent cartridge from his weapon, and calmly replaced it with another bullet. His partner, Officer Matthew Williams had already been in the vehicle during the shooting, and asked, "What did you do?" Torsney responded, "I don't know, Matty. What did I do?"

Legal proceedings

On the day of the funeral, Torsney was indicted by a

grand jury A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...

on charges of second-degree murder. The trial began in October, 1977, where his defense maintained that the killing resulted from a psychotic episode due to " automatism of Penfield", named for neurosurgeon

Wilder Penfield Wilder Graves Penfield (January 26, 1891April 5, 1976) was an American Canadians, American-Physicians in Canada, Canadian neurosurgeon. He expanded brain surgery's methods and techniques, including mapping the functions of various regions of th ...

. On November 30, 1977, one year after the funeral, Torsney was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Torsney was remanded to

Creedmoor Psychiatric Center Creedmoor Psychiatric Center is a psychiatric hospital at 79-26 Winchester Boulevard in Queens Village, Queens, New York, United States. It provides inpatient, outpatient and residential services for severely mentally ill patients. The hospital o ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

. On December 20, 1978, a Brooklyn State Supreme Court ordered Torsney's release, stating he no longer posed a threat to society. On the following July 9, 1979, Torsney was released from Creedmoor under many rules and restrictions, including no firearms, ammunition, or explosives possession, no employment in law enforcement or other public safety, and submitting to outpatient treatment at Creedmoor for the next five years with possible revocation of his release if deemed necessary for his or others' safety. The Torsney case was mentioned by

Bob Herbert Robert Herbert (born March 7, 1945) is an American journalist and former op-ed columnist for '' The New York Times''. His column was syndicated to other newspapers around the country. Herbert frequently writes on poverty, the Iraq War, racis ...

in his ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' column after the shooting of

Sean Bell Sean, also spelled Seán or Séan in Irish English, is a male given name of Irish origin. It comes from the Irish versions of the Biblical Hebrew name ''Yohanan'' (), Seán (anglicized as ''Shaun/ Shawn/ Shon'') and Séan (Ulster variant; angli ...

which took place exactly 30 years to the day after the killing of Evans."Badges, Guns and Another Unarmed Victim"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', November 30, 2006, accessed March 31, 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Randolph 1961 births 1976 deaths Crimes in Brooklyn Deaths by firearm in Brooklyn Deaths by person in New York City New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct People from Brooklyn Incidents of violence against boys