When Maurice Gordon’s friend called 911 in Dutchess County, New York in the early morning of May 22, he was hoping police would find and check on the 28-year-old, who had been talking about being possessed and having paranormal experiences.
But when police in New Jersey did find Gordon about 24 hours later — interacting with him four times in four hours — they were totally unaware that his friend told a police dispatcher in Poughkeepsie of Gordon’s mental health history and that he abruptly left his home at around 3:30 a.m. in a “panicked” state.
During the interactions with police on the Garden State Parkway, Gordon made strange and even nonsensical statements, including twice saying he was driving to “the end of the video game,” according to video of the stops. One officer commented “there’s something strange,” and two gave him in-car sobriety tests to see if he was impaired, but he was allowed to drive away.
Later that morning, he was shot to death by a New Jersey state trooper during a violent struggle on the left shoulder of the Parkway, after he had been waiting for a tow in the back of the cruiser, according to authorities.
Video shows the trooper, identified as Sgt. Randall Wetzel, saying that Gordon tried to steal his police cruiser and went for his gun, something an attorney for Gordon’s family disputes.
The state Attorney General’s office — which is investigating the case as with all police shootings, and presenting it to a grand jury — said the troopers were not aware of the 911 call or Gordon’s other interactions with police on the Parkway that morning, according to spokeswoman Sharon Lauchaire.
With the benefit of hindsight — and multiple police video and audio recordings released last week — it seems clear Gordon was in need of some kind of help, but at each step failed to get it.
New Jersey State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan on Friday pointed to a failed communication system among law enforcement and a need for more training and resources to better prepare troopers.
As national debate rages about reforms to policing, the incident illustrates a key issue central for some of those advocating for defunding police — that police are not well equipped to handle situations involving those suffering from mental illness and money should go to support mental health systems instead.
“The thing is, police officers are not social workers and nobody expects them to make an evaluation or certainly diagnose someone,” said Joanne Greene, executive director of the Mental Health Association in Passaic County, which runs Crisis Intervention Team training for police and first responders.
Gordon’s ex-girlfriend Denielle Morrison, of Poughkeepsie, told NJ Advance Media that Gordon was on medication to treat a mental illness, but declined to discuss his condition further.
Morrison believes signs of his disorder were clear on the videos, but said police weren’t adequately trained to spot them.
“(Police) really need better education and awareness on how to deal with all kinds of people, and not just people who are in a healthy state of mind,” Morrison said. “I think everyone could clearly see he was disoriented."
A spokesperson for William O. Wagstaff, Gordon’s family’s lawyer, said the family was unable to comment because they were preparing for Gordon’s funeral.
Wagstaff said Gordon did not deserve to die, and only tried to get in the driver’s seat to flee because the officer was the aggressor and kept physically engaging with him.
Pete J. Stilianessis, president of the New Jersey State Troopers Non-Commissioned Officers Association, said in a statement that Wetzel tried repeatedly to keep Gordon safe in a dangerous position on the highway, and only resorted to shooting him when verbal commands, physical force and pepper spray didn’t work.
“This incident occurred not because of police aggression, but despite every attempt to de-escalate the situation," the union president said.
The 911 call
At 3:23 a.m. on Friday, May 22, a friend of Gordon’s told a 911 dispatcher in New York that Gordon had shown up at his house talking about having paranormal experiences at the Airbnb where he had been staying temporarily.
“When he came, he was very, very panicked. I told him ‘Hey, give me the keys. Tell me what’s up.’ But he wouldn’t tell me what’s up. He kept asking ‘Do I look possessed? Do I look possessed?'" the friend said in an audio recording of the call.
The dispatcher and the friend discussed Gordon’s medical history, but the Attorney General’s Office redacted those parts of the call. Callahan said New Jersey State Police weren’t made aware of the 911 call. Poughkeepsie police did not return a request for comment.
Jon Shane, associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former Newark Police captain, said only if someone is a danger to him or herself would a name be entered in the National Crime Information Center database, which would tell authorities who encounter the person or their vehicle about the potential mental health issues.
First police encounters
Troopers in New Jersey first encountered Gordon when his car ran out of gas in the middle lane of the southbound Garden State Parkway at 3:13 a.m. May 23. Two off-duty police officers stopped to help – a Red Bank police officer and an off-duty State Police trooper — and then another, on-duty trooper arrived with dashcam rolling.
“He was a little squirrelly. There’s something strange here,” the off-duty trooper told the second trooper. “There’s something strange. I don’t know what it is.”
When the second trooper asked Gordon where he was going, Gordon said, “to the real world” and referenced a video game. The trooper called him a tow truck, which brought him two gallons of gas, and the trooper advised him to get off the highway to fill up where it’d be cheaper.
But he ran out of gas again in the left lane near Exit 72 in Waretown at 4:54 a.m. Dashcam video shows a trooper gave Gordon part of a field sobriety test where a driver is asked to follow the officer’s finger or pen back and forth, but no audio of the interaction is available.
Another trooper pulled Gordon over at 6:13 a.m. in Stafford, telling him he was driving 101 MPH, the video shows.
Asked where he is going, Gordon said, “I’m trying to get a very far place... The end of the video game.” The trooper questioned him what he meant about a video game, but Gordon only said he was “driving far." After another sobriety test and ticket, Gordon drove off.
Shooting scene
The speeding stop that would end in Gordon’s death occurred less than 15 minutes later when authorities said he was going 110 mph near Exit 50 in Bass River. Gordon pulled his vehicle into the left shoulder close to the concrete barrier that separates north and southbound lanes, according to the video. Sgt. Wetzel told Gordon to pull further onto the shoulder for safety, but Gordon couldn’t get his car to restart.
Wetzel asked Gordon if he wanted to wait in the police cruiser for a tow truck. The trooper had to redirect Gordon multiple times as he tried to walk into the travel lane, the video shows.
In the cruiser, Gordon was barely responsive as Wetzel asked him if he wanted a ride somewhere and if he was on medication.
When the trooper tried to hand him a mask through the open door, the two started struggling on the side of the highway, according to the video. Gordon twice got into the cruiser’s driver’s seat and Wetzel pepper-sprayed him once, according to authorities and the video.
Ninety seconds into the fight, Wetzel fired his gun six times at Gordon at close range. He told the first officer who arrived on scene, “We were fighting with my gun and I shot him.”
‘How come we didn’t know?’
During an interview Friday for NJTV’s Chat Box with David Cruz, Callahan said the string of events revealed a communication issue among law enforcement —both between the two states and within the New Jersey State Police.
“We had an agency that knew someone was probably in distress,” Callahan told Cruz. “That didn’t go beyond Poughkeepsie, New York.”
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