Lead Up to New Rochelle Shooting: A Timeline of Events and Context Surrounding Jerrell Garris’ Death

DUBLIN, IRELAND (February 28, 2025) — On July 3, 2023, Jerrell Garris, a 37-year-old New Rochelle resident with a documented history of mental health struggles and criminal behavior, was fatally shot by police following a violent confrontation. The shooting incident, which unfolded in front of the Catherine AME Zion Church on Lincoln Avenue, has sparked debate over the justification of the shooting and Garris’ troubled past.

Witness statements from those who encountered Garris in the minutes before the shooting, presented here in full for the first time, depict, a large, imposing, disoriented man with a well-known history of schizophrenia, heavy drug use and violence, who frightened people in their homes and in a grocery store.