Elected officers, advocates and relations of a 37-year-old man who was gunned down years in the past by an off-duty cop urged NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Thursday to let the officer’s disciplinary trial proceed, calling it an essential check of her willingness to carry officers accountable.
They did so in particular person exterior police headquarters in decrease Manhattan, in addition to via a letter to Tisch signed by 33 principally progressive workplace holders, together with Comptroller Brad Lander, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens) and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado final month beneficial dismissing disciplinary costs of improper use of pressure towards the officer, Wayne Isaacs, who throughout a highway rage incident in Brooklyn in 2016 fatally shot Delrawn Small.
The Civilian Criticism Overview Board, which introduced the costs, was slated to prosecute Isaacs at a disciplinary trial beginning November 19. However Maldonado dominated that the board lacks jurisdiction over off-duty incidents, agreeing with a movement introduced by Isaacs’ attorneys.
Tisch is predicted to obtain arguments from Isaacs’ attorneys and CCRB officers by tomorrow, and there’s no deadline by which she should determine the destiny of the disciplinary trial. However her deliberations coincide with a time interval when she’s slated to have discussions with incoming mayor Zohran Mamdani about whether or not and the way she will keep put in her position.
Mamdani stated throughout his successful marketing campaign that he want to preserve Tisch as commissioner, however he additionally stated he helps increasing the CCRB’s authority over disciplinary issues.
“There’s been a lot of talk about Commissioner Tisch. There’s been a lot of talk about her efforts to clean up the NYPD, and this is a very clear test right here,” Metropolis Councilmember Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn) stated at a small rally exterior police headquarters on Thursday. “This is a line in the sand.”
Councilmember Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn) speaks exterior NYPD headquarters in Decrease Manhatan towards dropping a disciplinary case after officer Wayne Isaacs fatally taking pictures Delrawn Small whereas he was off responsibility, Nov. 13, 2025. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Nurse was amongst 33 elected officers who signed the letter to Tisch that morning urging the commissioner to let the disciplinary course of for Isaacs play out.
“We appreciate everybody’s support coming out and the Council members signing the letter to hold her accountable,” Eric Ealam, a cousin of Small stated on the rally. “Disciplining a cop that killed an unarmed man in front of his baby, and his family, should not take this long.”
It’s a case that’s been pending for almost 10 years, stalled by a legal prosecution and acquittal, and a number of investigations and lawsuits, that started with the deadly taking pictures at an East New York intersection on July 4, 2016.
Isaacs has stated from the outset that Small approached his car, which was stopped at a purple mild shortly after he completed his shift on the native precinct, threatened to kill him and assaulted him.
He stated he fired his private gun, not his service weapon, in self-defense.
Inside days of the incident, video emerged that supporters of Small say clearly reveals that he didn’t throw any punches at Isaacs and didn’t even have time to take action earlier than he was gunned down.
Nonetheless, Isaacs was acquitted of homicide and manslaughter costs by a Brooklyn jury in late 2017 after a lot of jurors believed that video of the incident confirmed Small throwing a punch, in line with the New York Occasions.
The NYPD’s Drive Investigation Division decided the next 12 months that the taking pictures was justified, however the Civilian Criticism Overview Board — which investigates and prosecutes situations of improper use of pressure by law enforcement officials — substantiated three costs of improper use of pressure towards Isaacs in 2020.
Maldonado agreed, discovering that Isaacs didn’t invoke his authority as a police officer throughout the taking pictures, and beneficial that Tisch dismiss the case.
However CCRB officers found final week that Isaacs’ attorneys had used the other argument in a civil lawsuit filed in 2017, in a bid to preclude Isaacs from being held financially accountable for any payouts made by the NYPD or metropolis authorities to Small’s household.
Citing the civil lawsuit choice, the CCRB requested Maldonado to rethink her advice, however she declined, in line with a supply accustomed to the NYPD disciplinary course of.
Police union president Patrick Hendry has backed Maldonado’s ruling, saying that the CCRB’s “constant overreach into matters beyond its jurisdiction isn’t an accident — it is part of a coordinated campaign to take full control of the NYPD.”
Final week, the interim chair of the CCRB, Dr. Mohammad Khalid, submitted his resignation from the board and chairship after serving within the position for 11 months — citing what he characterised because the unfavourable impacts on his well being and household of Hendry’s “campaign of lies against my character,” which he stated included referring to him as “anti-cop.”
Hendry responded in an announcement that his criticism was factually primarily based on what he described as Khalid’s “biased voting record” and need to strip authority on disciplinary choices from the police commissioner.
Quite a few prior board chairs have additionally pursued larger energy over disciplinary outcomes for NYPD members, which state regulation provides ultimate authority over to the police commissioner.
At Thursday’s rally, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams stated the highlight is now on Tisch, notably after she not too long ago overruled Maldonado’s advice {that a} cop be terminated for the deadly taking pictures of fleeing driver Allan Feliz in The Bronx in 2019 following a visitors cease.
“I’m pleading with commissioner Tisch to do the right thing,” he stated at Thursday’s rally. “I have no faith and confidence in Eric Adams at all. I do have faith in Zohran Mamdani, and I’m hoping that he’s having conversations — letting the commissioner know that if we’re going to move forward, we have to move forward with a different vision than what we’ve had for the past few years.”
Neither Mamdani nor Tisch has commented on the case publicly.
Associated
