The father of police brutality victim Saheed Vassell is demanding a public apology and the retraction of an advertisement by Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, where footage of Vassell is used amid a collage of apocalyptic crime imagery and narration.
The Zeldin campaign used security footage of Vassell, a 34-year-old Black man who was killed by NYPD officers in Crown Heights in April 2018, in an ad this month highlighting footage of criminal activity and laying blame at the hands of Democratic governor Kathy Hochul. The footage of Vassell, where he is seen pointing a metal pipe shaped like a gun at pedestrians, plays over the ominous narration “On November 8, vote like your life depends on it. It just might.”
