Video Shows NYPD Cop Calling Trawick “Just a Perp”
Family demands fi ring of police offi cers who killed out queer Black man in 2019
BY MATT TRACY
Additional body camera footage from
the fatal police shooting of out queer
man Kawaski Trawick in 2019 shows
police offi cers calling him a “just a
perp” shortly after he was gunned down in his
own home, according to ProPublica.
Trawick’s family is again infuriated following
the release of the latest footage, which was published
by ProPublica after the non-profi t organization
New York Lawyers for the Public Interest
used a lawsuit to obtain it from the NYPD. The
latest video surfaced just over one month after
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark unveiled
separate body camera video clips showing the
moments when Offi cers Brendan Thompson
and Herbert Davis visited Trawick’s apartment,
tased him, and shot him on a night when he
may have been experiencing distress.
The new footage shows a sergeant surrounded
by other police offi cers as she asks, “Who’s
hurt?” Two unidentifi ed offi cers off to the side
then responded, saying, “Nobody. Just a perp.”
“This upsets me on so many levels,” Trawick’s
mother, Ellen Trawick, said in a written statement.
“I don’t see why they would refer to my
son as a ‘perp.’ He had not committed a crime,
he was not committing a crime and he was in
his own home. The police are the ones who were
the perpetrators of violence, they killed my son,
and after that, all they did was try to criminalize
➤ REFUGEE CLAIMS, from p.12
pointed secretary of DHS, the plaintiffs have a
strong argument that the regulation was not
validly promulgated and cannot take effect. At
least, Judge Donato concluded, they are likely
to prevail on this point when the court reaches
the merits of the case. For purposes of deciding
on issuing the preliminary injunction, that is
all he had to decide, and therefore was able to
put off to later the plaintiffs’ argument that the
regulation is inconsistent with the statute and
the country’s treaty obligation.
Judge Donato was scathing in describing the
DOJ’s attempt to justify Wolf’s authority in the
face of four previous adverse decisions by federal
courts. The government fi led appeals of three of
those rulings but withdrew two of the appeals
and one is still pending. “This Court is now the
fi fth federal court to be asked to plow the same
ground about Wolf’s authority vel nonto change
the immigration regulations,” he commented.
“If the government had proffered new facts or
law with respect to that question, or a hitherto
unconsidered argument, this might have been
FACEBOOK/ KAWASKI TRAWICK
Kawaski Trawick, a gay man who was shot to death by cops in his
Bronx home in 2019.
him like his life didn’t matter. The only thing
my son did was ask them why they were in his
home. He asked multiple times and instead of
answering him, they yelled orders at him, tased
him and killed Kawaski in 112 seconds.”
Trawick, 32, was living at Hill House, a supportive
living environment at 1616 Grand Avenue
in the Bronx. The pair of offi cers initially
traveled to Trawick’s apartment after records
a worthwhile exercise. It did not.”
To the judge’s apparent astonishment, the
government’s attorney at the hearing on this
motion, August Flentje, just argued that the
prior court rulings were “wrong, with scant
explanation,” which Donato characterized as
a “troubling strategy. In effect, the government
keeps crashing the same car into the gate, hoping
that someday it might break through.”
“A good argument might be made, at this
point in time, the government’s arguments lack
a good-faith basis in law or fact,” Donato continued.
But he concluded it was unnecessary
for him to make such a drastic fi nding since his
own review of the record indicates that “the latest
decision before this order correctly identifi ed
and analyzed the salient points vitiating Wolf’s
claim of rule-making authority, and the Court
agrees with it in full.”
This case shows the Trump Administration’s
general contempt for the federal judiciary, especially
(but not only) when a judge appointed by
President Barack Obama (such as Judge Donato)
is hearing the case. Judge Donato found
that letting the rule go into effect would irreparably
CRIME
of dispatchers detailed a tumultuous evening,
according to a report Clark published late last
year. The superintendent of Trawick’s building
and a security guard had called police and said
Trawick was annoying neighbors.
Trawick also called 911 that same evening
and insisted that there was a fi re and that he
was locked out. When offi cers approached his
apartment, Davis knocked on his door, and
when nobody answered, he knocked again and
went on to open Trawick’s front door without
any permission.
As cops entered his home, Trawick was holding
a serrated knife and a stick and said he was
cooking. He asked offi cers why they entered his
apartment, and they instead ignored him and
pleaded with him to put down his knife. Trawick
proceeded to walk away to turn off a radio before
turning to the offi cers and asking why they were
standing in his home. Davis then tased Trawick,
which caused him to drop onto the ground, and
Thompson subsequently dropped the taser. Trawick
then recovered and screamed at the offi -
cers, prompting Thompson — who no longer had
a taser — to shoot him multiple times.
Trawick’s family members, who want the offi -
cers to be terminated from the NYPD or charged,
became further irritated by the department’s
hesitation in releasing body camera footage.
“It makes me even more upset,” Ellen Trawick
said. “Herbert Davis and Brendan Thompson
need to be fi red.
harm the plaintiff organizations in their
missions to represent asylum seekers, and that
the balance of hardship between the plaintiffs,
the government, and the public interest all tilted
in favor of issuing the injunction.
Once a fi nal regulation has been published in
the Federal Register, it cannot be simply withdrawn
by the next Administration, but this preliminary
injunction will give breathing room for
the Biden Administration’s incoming DHS and
DOJ leadership to put the wheels in motion under
the Administrative Procedure Act to terminate
or replace it if the court doesn’t dispose of it
fi rst by issuing a fi nal ruling on the merits that it
was invalidly promulgated. Issuing the preliminary
injunction was a promising fi rst step.
Among the attorneys working on the case are
Immigration Equality Legal Director Bridget
Crawford and Executive Director Aaron Morris,
Lambda Legal attorneys Jennifer C. Pizer,
Omar Gonzalez-Pagan and Richard Saenz, and
cooperating attorneys Jeffrey S. Trachtman,
Aaron M. Frankel, Chase Mechanick, Jason
M. Moff and Austin Manes from the law fi rm
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP.
GayCityNews.com | January 14 - January 27, 2021 13
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