After work as a security guard on the afternoon shift, Dorismond and a friend stopped by a nearby midtown cocktail lounge for a beer. They then walked out on the street and were waiting for a taxi when an undercover cop with two others close by approached the Black youth and asked him if he had any marijuana for sale. Dorismond angrily responded to this harassment and a scuffle ensued. Within 20 seconds one of the other plainclothes cops, Anthony Vásquez, fired the shot that killed Dorismond.

"My son is not a criminal," asserted Marie Dorismond, a Haitian immigrant at a news conference outside her East Flatbush apartment building. She was responding to accusations made by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who asserted that Dorismond's "pattern of behavior" and actions the night of the shooting contributed to his death.

Police Commissioner Howard Safir, in a further effort to turn the victim into the criminal, told the press that Dorismond had a long police record that included charges of robbery, assault, and illegal possession of a weapon. However, "a check by other public officials," admits the New York Times, "suggested a different picture." Dorismond had been ordered to do a few days of community service as a result of two separate disorderly conduct charges filed against him.

According to Marie Dorismond, her son's "dream" was to become a police officer. "He hated the attitude that police have that young Black men are criminals," she said. "He wanted to become a police officer to change that attitude, to help young kids from getting into trouble. But the attitude he wanted to change killed him." "The police will say it was an accident," she stated, "their supporters will say it was a tragedy, and the police will go unpunished again."  
 
 
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