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COURIER LIFE, APRIL 8-14, 2022
‘He murdered our brother’
Delrawn Small’s family says police union trying to nix disciplinary trial for killer cop
BY BEN BRACHFELD
The family of Delrawn Small,
a Black man killed by an off-duty
police officer in East New York
in 2016, says that the Police Benevolent
Association, the powerful
NYPD patrol officers’ union,
is attempting to derail a planned
disciplinary trial for the officer
who killed Small. On March 31
his loved ones plead with Mayor
Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner
Keechant Sewell to allow
proceedings to go forward.
The same day, 26 elected officials,
including 14 representing
Brooklyn, sent a letter to Adams
and Sewell urging them to allow
the disciplinary trial, which
the Civilian Complaint Review
Board is hoping to soon commence,
to proceed.
Small was killed on July 4,
2016 by off-duty NYPD Officer
Wayne Isaacs while both were
sitting at a stoplight at Atlantic
Avenue and Bradford Street
in East New York. Isaacs and
the NYPD initially claimed that
Small, in a fit of road rage, had
approached the officer, cursed
him out, and punched him before
Isaacs fired the fatal shots. But
surveillance video uncovered
several days later cast doubt on
the department’s account of the
incident, showing Small, who
was unarmed and traveling with
his girlfriend, step-daughter,
and newborn baby, collapse to
the ground within seconds of approaching
Isaacs’ vehicle.
The family says that after
Isaacs shot Small, he neglected
to render emergency aid and instead
called 911, in the process obscuring
his role in the incident by
withholding the fact he had shot
him and that he was bleeding out
in the street. They say that aspect
of the encounter in particular
should make it an open-and-shut
case against Isaacs.
“There’s a video out that
shows how he murdered our
brother,” said Victor Dempsey,
Small’s younger brother, at a
March 31 press conference at
City Hall with allied elected officials
and advocates. “But what
folks tend to forget is before the
video surfaced, he lied.”
A verdict years in the
making
Isaacs was acquitted by a jury
of second-degree murder and firstdegree
manslaughter in 2017, and
was later cleared of wrongdoing
by an internal NYPD investigation;
he remains on the force and
has returned to active duty. But
the CCRB announced in 2020 that
it had substantiated an excessive
force complaint and Isaacs and in
January of last year announced
its intention to bring disciplinary
charges against the boy in blue.
Last month, a judge tossed Isaacs’
appeal to prevent the disciplinary
proceedings from moving forward.
While the CCRB was granted
the ability last year to initiate
its own investigations, it is only
empowered to act as a prosecutor
in internal NYPD disciplinary
trials, and final authority to
actually mete out discipline rests
with the commissioner, who ignores
CCRB disciplinary recommendations
in a majority of
cases. The police commissioner
is also empowered to “retain”
any disciplinary case and withhold
the CCRB from any involvement,
an agency spokesperson
told Brooklyn Paper, noting that
that provision of the city charter
is what lawyers for Isaacs provided
by the PBA are currently
attempting to exploit.
“The CCRB maintains that
Officer Wayne Isaacs committed
misconduct when he shot and
killed Delrawn Small,” the CCRB
spokesperson said in a statement.
“We believe the evidence is clear
and will argue the case to Commissioner
Sewell and the Trial Commissioner
when our Administrative
Prosecution Unit takes Officer
Isaacs to trial. Mr. Small’s family
has waited nearly six years to see
Officer Isaacs held accountable for
his fatal misconduct and the CCRB
Victoria Davis and Victor Dempsey, brother and sister of Delrawn Small (inset), at a rally at City Hall on
March 31. Photo by Ben Brachfeld, inset courtesy of Facebook
is committed to moving
forward with this
case.”
Small’s family says they have
not had any communication with
either the mayor or the police
commissioner, and only found
out about the PBA’s attempt to
nuke the proceedings from the
CCRB — and they say it’s just the
latest in a long saga by the controversial
police union to stonewall
any attempt to hold Isaacs
accountable. “The police union
lawyers are throwing spaghetti
at the wall, hoping something
sticks,” Dempsey said. “And
they’ve been doing that since the
day he murdered our brother.”
In a statement, PBA president
Pat Lynch said that allowing the
case to proceed would not add
anything new to the case considering
it had already been adjudicated
by the NYPD internally
and by a Brooklyn jury. “CCRB is
simply looking for a third bite at
the apple in order to justify their
bloated budget and advance their
anti-cop agenda,” he said.
A PBA spokesperson disputed
Small family claims that
the union was attempting to
discharge the case via a “backroom”
deal, arguing that Isaacs’
lawyers are attempting to get
the case dismissed on the same
grounds they tried in court earlier
this year, namely that the
case has been previously adjudicated
by the NYPD and therefore
a new proceeding would be “arbitrary
and capricious.”
Spokespersons for the NYPD
did not respond to requests for
comment from Brooklyn Paper.
On March 30, Sewell declined to
answer questions from Councilmember
Sandy Nurse, who represents
the neighborhood where
Smalls was killed, on whether
she believed the CCRB should be
allowed to proceed, but said that
“malfeasance and misfeasance”
by members of the NYPD would
not be tolerated under her watch.
“I certainly intend to hold every
officer who does not follow
the rules and regulations of this
police department accountable,”
Sewell told Nurse at the virtual
oversight hearing on the mayor’s
anti-gun violence blueprint, adding
that she intended to make a
quick decision on the matter as
soon as she was able to review
it, though she did not provide a
timeline. The CCRB rep said that
the watchdog agency also could
not provide a timeline without
greater clarity from the NYPD.
‘Two legal systems’
At City Hall, Nurse and others
expressed skepticism of Sewell’s
claims, and questioned the point
of the CCRB’s existence if it’s
ability to try claims of excessive
force can be pulled back by department
brass. “We have two legal
systems,” Nurse said. “Why
have the CCRB if we are not going
to allow it to do its job, and
fulfill its mission. It has a mandate,
and it’s the least we have
to hold accountability. And yet
every time there seems to be an
obstacle in the way of allowing it
to do its job. What is the point?”
A spokesperson for the mayor’s
office did not respond to a request
for comment. Hizzoner told
Brooklyn Paper in December
after the CCRB was granted authority
to initiate investigations
that he would defer to existing
law on such matters and that he
wished to stay out of agency politics.
The mayor has made public
safety a linchpin of his young administration,
resuscitating the
controversial, disbanded anticrime
units and removing homeless
people from subway trains in
an effort to reduce violent crime.
But while Adams has said he
doesn’t want abusive cops to mar
his push for public safety, advocates
say he has not prioritized
the proliferation of it through
holding officers accountable.
“It seems like we’re always
trying to do something unreasonable,
but we’re not. The system
forces us to push and fight
for just a basic semblance of justice,”
said Public Advocate Jumaane
Williams. “Mayor Adams,
Commissioner Sewell, this
did not happen on your watch,
I’m clear about that. But what
happens from here on, is on your
watch.”