By Christina Santucci
Relatives of a 27-year-old man, who the NYPD said had held a knife to his own neck before he was fatally shot by police, were still planning funeral arrangements Tuesday for the new father.
Walwyn Jackson’s mother Lorna Francis said she hoped to hold a service in the coming weeks.
Jackson, who often went by his middle name Dujon or his nickname Smiley, died Friday afternoon after he was shot once by a police officer in his Springfield Gardens home, the city Police Department and the man’s family said.
Relatives said Jackson was depressed that he could not find employment to help support his 2-week-old son.
“He just had the baby and didn’t have a job,” Jackson’s grief-stricken mother Lorna Francis said, while sitting on the floor of her son’s home.
According to the NYPD, police were called to the house at about 4:45 p.m. to respond to a report of a man holding a knife to his neck.
Jackson’s grandmother Gloria Cameron said the family had noticed a knife missing from the kitchen and went to check on Jackson upstairs. A spokesman for the NYPD said the knife was 7 inches long.
“When I saw him, he had it at his throat,” Cameron said.
Relatives went to get a male cousin who they hoped could convince Jackson to hand over the knife and later the family called for an ambulance.
Cameron said she opened the front door to two police officers, who started walking up the stairs and gesturing for Cameron and another family member to stay on the main level.
“I see him [one officer] go for his gun. I say, ‘No, he’s sick,’” Cameron said.
Police said the officers ordered Jackson to drop the knife repeatedly, but he refused and began to walk towards them with it in the air. Then an officer fired one shot, which hit Jackson in the shoulder, according to the NYPD.
“I was standing here when I heard the shot,” Cameron said, while in the kitchen of the home on 144th Terrace.
After the gunshot, she ran outside, and the next time she saw her grandson, he was being taken away on a stretcher.
“They never uncuffed him,” Cameron said.
A spokesman for the NYPD could not confirm if Jackson was in handcuffs and said, “If he is still alive and poses a threat, that would be standard procedure.”
Police said the officer was taken to North Manhasset Medical Center to be treated for tinnitus and later released, and an investigation into the incident was continuing as of Monday, police said.
Francis said she spoke to her son on the phone shortly before he died.
“I told him to put the knife down because when the ambulance comes, the cops come, and when the cops come, they are going to shoot you,” she said.
Jackson, who had attended Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village, had recently become a father to a son named Landon.
According to his mother, he had worked as a medical technician but was currently out of a job.
Francis flew up from Atlanta after she got the news. On Saturday evening, a stream of friends poured into the house to console her.
“How are you calling the ambulance for help and your child ends up dead?” she asked.
Reach photo editor Christina Santucci by e-mail at csantucci@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4589.
