Westchester residents march to commemorate one-year anniversary of police shooting that killed Jarrel Garris

Family and friends mark the one-year anniversary of the police-involved shooting that killed Jarrel Garris.

Westchester residents gathered to mark the one-year anniversary of a police-involved shooting that killed a New Rochelle man.

Friends and family members of Jarrel Garris said July 3 was a difficult day for them.

This time last year, he was shot and killed by a New Rochelle police detective following a complaint from a local store about a reported food theft.

According to the attorney general's office, Garris was taken to a local hospital where he later died of his injuries.

Garris' mother, Janet, shared how she feels a year later without her son.

“I’m fine,” Janet said. “He’s with me. He’s always here.”

A spokesperson for the attorney general's office said the investigation is ongoing, but Garris' family said the delay is causing them incredible pain.

They gathered, along with community members and their attorney, William Wagstaff, at St. Catherine AME Zion Church in New Rochelle on Wednesday for a vigil where they called for the detective to be charged for his actions.

Garris' father, Raymond Fowler, expressly said that was enough.

“Every time you turn around, people from our background are [sic] “I was shot by a police officer,” Fowler said.

After the vigil, the group continued to voice their demands by marching to the New Rochelle Police Department.

A New Rochelle Police Department captain provided an update on the three officers involved in the incident that resulted in Garris' death, saying one officer is injured and the other two are working.

Leah Nelson, a supporter who attended the rally on behalf of the Westchester Coalition for Police Reform, said she and several others are demanding that the department reform its police force.

“We are demanding transparency on what really happened and the accountability of the police officer who murdered this man,” Nelson said.

Several people at the rally said they would not stop until they got “justice for Jarrel.”