Breaking News | New Brunswick City Council holds hearing on the killing of Deborah Terrell

A group of demonstrators outside the New Brunswick Municipal Court Building in New Brunswick, NJ, on August 20, 2025. Photo credit: Anthony Orlando for Public Square Amplified.

New Brunswick, NJ - On August 20th, the New Brunswick city council held a hearing regarding the fatal shooting of 68-year-old Deborah Terrell. Her death reaffirms the urgent discussion about racialization of police killings, police accountability, and the predominant killing of Black and Brown people experiencing a mental health crisis. 

Police officers shot Terrell on Friday, August 8th, while responding to an emergency call reporting a woman walking around with a knife in her apartment building. Terrell was a beloved mother, grandmother, and member of the New Brunswick community. Many people who knew Terrell shared their memories of her and sent their condolences to her family online.

When the officers arrived on the scene, they reportedly saw Terrell with a knife. An eyewitness video recording captured footage of the officers using pepper spray and a Taser on Terrell outside her apartment before one officer shot her dead.

When inquired about this incident before the hearing, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General claimed the investigation of this encounter is “continuing” and that “additional updates, including the release of bodyworn camera footage, will be made public when the initial investigation is substantially complete.”

One Somerset man, who lived in New Brunswick in 2011 during the killing of Barry Deloatch, said it was “unnecessary” for the police to escalate to such lethal force with Terrell so “incredibly quickly.”

“This is a trend in [the] New Brunswick police department,” he said. “There should not be multiple killings of Black people in New Brunswick that you can point to over the years. The police should not be killing its community.”

Various photos of demonstrators both outside the New Brunswick Municipal Court Building and during the city council meeting in New Brunswick, NJ, on August 20, 2025. Photo credit: Anthony Orlando and Josie Gonsalves for Public Square Amplified.

From 2013 to 2025, police officers reportedly killed 92 Black Americans per 1 million people in the U.S., making them 2.8 times more likely than white Americans to be killed by police.  From 2015 to 2024, The Washington Post also found that police killed 2,053 people in the U.S. during a mental health emergency.

Some notable examples of such killings in New Jersey include the shootings of Victoria Lee, Najee Seabrooks, and Andrew Washington. The latter two incidents resulted in the ratification of the Seabrooks-Washington Community-Led Crisis Response Act. 

This New Jersey law establishes a Community Crisis Response Advisory Council and a pilot program for community crisis response teams that help provide “professional on-site community-based intervention such as outreach, de-escalation, stabilization, resource connection, and follow-up support for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis.”

While Governor Phil Murphy signed this bill into law in 2024, Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin has yet to release the funds needed to implement it. The Attorney General’s Office did not comment on the matter.

Terrell’s death and the police’s alleged mishandling of her mental health crisis ignited a firestorm of outrage. 

Zayid Muhammad with a group of demonstrators outside the New Brunswick Municipal Court Building in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on August 20, 2025. Photo credit: Anthony Orlando for Public Square Amplified.

Author/activist Zayid Muhammad claimed that the Middlesex County government “failed” New Brunswick. He criticized the county government for not picking up $2 million designated by the Seabooks-Washington Bill to fund the development of a local crisis response team. 

“[A] local community-led crisis response team…could have saved Deborah Terrell's life,” said Muhammad. “That's who should have responded to the call for help that she needed. Not the police.

Close to two hundred people assembled inside and outside the New Brunswick Municipal Court building during the city council's hearing on August 20th. Demonstrators included members of the People’s Organization for Progress (POP) and the New Jersey Communities for Accountable Policing.

While speaking during the hearing, POP Chairperson Lawrence Hamm stated that the police in New Brunswick are “out of control.” He argued that the New Brunswick council should send a resolution supporting the bill that would establish a police review board with subpoena power. He also claimed that police officers should undergo tests for their psychological state and “racist attitudes” to prevent future shootings of people like Terrell.

“We need a police review board in every major city in this state,” said Hamm. “Now, when I was standing in the back, I heard the council give indulgences and sympathies to the family, and that is important. But we need more than sympathy. We need justice.”

Archange Antoine outside the New Brunswick Municipal Court Building in New Brunswick, NJ, on August 20, 2025. Photo credit: Anthony Orlando for Public Square Amplified.

Minister Archange Antoine from the Clergy Coalition for Liberation joined the crowd to support Terrell and her family members. He also demanded that the New Brunswick police release the bodycam footage of the encounter with Ferrell and terminate the officers responsible for her death.

“There is no reason why anyone should be killed the way she was killed in 2025,” said Antoine. “And we also believe that, while it’s a burden that always falls on the family, the city council and the municipality should make sure that they fund the funeral, as well as expenses that the families have to incur as a result of the murder of Deborah Terrell.”

So far, the officer who killed Terrell had only received eight days' leave. New Brunswick’s city council did not release any new police footage or evidence, nor have they filed any criminal charges against the officers involved in Terrell’s death.

However, demonstrators in New Brunswick expressed how more needs to be done to deliver justice and prevent police brutality against Black and Brown residents in need of mental health services.

[New Brunswick], as large as it is, as the center of New Jersey as it is, has dropped the ball completely on being able to provide services when people are in mental health crises,” said Antoine. “Police departments and police officers should not be dispatched to handle my mental health crisis. They are untrained professionals…And New Brunswick needs to step up big time with a commitment so that no one else dies from a mental health crisis.” 

Public Square Amplified will continue to follow this story as the legal case progresses.