Police Brutality / Individual record
Nicholas Heyward Jr.
Thirteen-year-old Nicholas Heyward Jr. was shot by a housing police officer while playing with a toy gun in Brooklyn in September 1994.
- Record ID
- PB-015
- Incident date
- September 24, 1994
- Date of death
- September 27, 1994
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
- Category
- Police shooting
What happened
Nicholas and his friends were playing cops and robbers in a dimly lit stairwell at the Gowanus Houses when an officer pursuing an unrelated suspect approached. The officer mistook the child's toy gun for a real weapon and shot him. His father became a prominent advocate for ending police shootings of children. New York City later named Gowanus Park for Nicholas and changed city toy-gun sales requirements.
Investigation & findings
No criminal charges were brought against the officer. An official 2001 city proclamation commemorated Nicholas and described the circumstances. IMPORTANT: the sheet's existing September 27 death date appears inconsistent with the city's September 24 incident date and requires reconciliation, not silent alteration.
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- Historical source-derived record, pre-2015
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Published historical compilation of Black people killed in police custody (1999–2014)SAGE journal / cited NAACP LDF memorial listing · 2016 · Secondary scholarly source