Just after midnight on New Year’s Day of 2021, Newark police officer Rod Simpkins shot 39-year-old Carl Dorsey dead. Simpkins was in an unmarked police minivan and in plainclothes when he arrived at the scene after reportedly hearing gunshots. Within seconds of exiting his car, Simpkins fired his gun at Dorsey. It is unclear if he announced himself as a police officer. The family of the unarmed Black man killed that night is now suing the police and the city of Newark, frustrated that the investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has dragged on for 20 months with no findings so far. “We’re demanding justice for my brother, and we need people to be accountable for what happened to him,” says Madinah Person, Dorsey’s sister. Larry Hamm, chair of the People’s Organization for Progress, says New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin owes the family and the wider community answers. “Two years is too long not to hear anything from the attorney general about this case,” says Hamm.
