Brooklyn Man Killed By Police Was Innocent, Family Says 20 Years Later

BED-STUY, NY — Carlos Lopez's loved ones gathered Saturday in Bed-Stuy, where an NYPD detective shot him dead 20 years ago, and vowed to fight what they say is an NYPD cover-up.

May 1 marked 20 years since an NYPD detective fatally shot Lopez, claiming he had just fatally shot another man on Gates Avenue and Marcus Garvey Boulevard in Bed Stuy.

But Carlos' mother, Carolyn Lopez, says he was an "innocent bystander" that night.

After nearly 20 years fighting for her son, Lopez in 2022 found new evidence she said exonerated Carlos — the sweatshirt police say he was wearing that night, without any bullet holes, court records show.

Carolyn Lopez on Saturday honored the 20th anniversary of her son's death alongside family, friends and NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, News 12 reported.

"It never gets better," Carolyn Lopez told News 12. "It gets worse."

In 2005, Carolyn Lopez sued the city of New York and the NYPD detective who killed her son, claiming Carlos Lopez was mistaken as a shooter that night.

A jury in 2011 decided police had not used "unreasonable deadly force" against Carlos Lopez — a decision her lawyer says was tainted by incomplete evidence, court records show.

But in 2022, Carolyn Lopez filed a new motion revealing the sweatshirt did not line up with the police's story — another inconsistency in a growing list of details that don't add up, her lawyer Nathaniel Smith told Patch.

"Carlos was not wearing the black hooded sweatshirt when he was shot," reads a motion filed in 2022.

"The hooded sweatshirt was put on Carlos only after he was shot in an effort to cover up the fact that Defendant Robinson shot an innocent bystander, not the shooter."

Smith and Lopez hope the NYPD, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and New York Attorney General Letitia James will revisit the case, especially given recent cultural discourse about police violence against Black men, Smith said.

"Since 2003, we've had an avalanche of information about how young Black men have been wrongfully gunned down," Smith said.

The Public Advocate told News 12 Lopez's story is indicative of a much larger issue in the justice system.

"In 20 years, we are now hearing the same stories over and over and over," Williams said. "Not only are we not getting justice the families should have, we're just adding more people to the names."