Widow of school crossing guard killed on subway train sues MTA over alleged leaked photos
She claims the photos ended up being posted on social media
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The widow of a man shot and killed while in the transit system is filing a $28.5 million lawsuit against the MTA on Tuesday.
Jakeba Dockery says an MTA worker took pictures of her husband, 45-year-old Richard Henderson, as he laid dying at a Brooklyn subway station in January.
She claims the photos were then shared in a series of text messages and ended up posted on social media.
"My heart just dropped. It just shot into pieces," she said. "It's like, I just dropped. My, my, my body just went numb."
The image is seared into Dockery's memory forever.
"So, what I saw was, he was laying on his back, you know, in a pool of his own blood," Dockery said. "His head is in front of two seats, his feet towards the door, blood everywhere, like, a lot of blood everywhere."
Henderson, 45, was killed after he intervened in a dispute between two other passengers over loud music. He was shot in the back and shoulder while riding the Manhattan-bound No. 3 train approaching the Franklin Ave-Medgar Evers College station.
Investigators said he may have lay dying for up to six subway stops before the train rolled into the Franklin Avenue station, where the doors opened up and police found him mortally wounded.
The father of three and grandfather of two worked as a crossing guard at the Avenues The World School, a private school in Chelsea.
Dockery says the amateur photo was nothing more than a macabre souvenir with no investigative purpose, taken out of grisly curiosity.
"You can't have a heart and soul to take pictures of somebody defenseless and just dying like this," she said.
Dockery is suing for the same amount of money that Kobe Bryant's widow, Vanessa Bryant, was awarded for leaked photos of his death scene from a helicopter crash in 2020.
"An employee, according to the information we have, released this photo that was taken by an employee at the scene of this man, at death's door," said Sanford Rubenstein, the family's attorney.
"The whole world saw it," Dockery said. "Yeah, I was getting all kinds of phone calls. Too many saw it from all over the place. It was-it just hurts."
The NYPD says they recovered images of a possible suspect in the shooting through an extensive video canvas and is now attempting to identify him through various means.
The person who was playing the music, which initially sparked the dispute, has not come forward to detectives as a witness. That person is believed to have been with children at the time.
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