Booker's Account of Teen's Death Largely Accurate, Records Show

Responding to a lawsuit filed by conservative journal National Review, records and witness accounts have been released largely upholding Mayor Cory Booker’s account of his role in aiding the victim of a homicide nine years ago, according to published reports.

National Review filed a lawsuit last week seeking documents related to the murder of Wazn Miller in 2004, whom Booker aided soon after he was shot on a Newark street. Booker later recounted the incident in speeches, recalling how the teenage Miller dying in his arms.

National Review, citing another Booker anecdote in which he described meeting a city youth named “T-Bone” who proved to be fictitious, demanded the documents in a public records request filed in late August. After the city asked for more time to locate the documents, National Journal filed suit, publicly claiming they were being stonewalled by the city.  

Under state law, a government agency has seven days to produce a document but can also request more time to compile the information. National Review received the documents last week, a few days after the suit was filed, according to NJ.com.

The documents and witness accounts, including by the then-director of the Newark Police Department, Anthony Ambrose -- now chief of detectives at the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office -- largely substantiate Booker’s account of the events that night, when he and a woman rendered aid to the wounded Miller.

Some details in Booker’s account were incorrect, however, including the number of times the youth was hit and Booker’s recollection that he held Miller’s “lifeless” body. Miller was treated by EMTs responding to the scene before he passed away.