Dozens of Electeds Call on Tisch to OK Disciplinary Proceeding Against Cop in Fatal Shooting

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Elected officials, advocates and family members of a 37-year-old man who was gunned down years ago by an off-duty cop urged NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Thursday to let the officer’s disciplinary trial proceed, calling it an important test of her willingness to hold officers accountable.

They did so in person outside police headquarters in lower Manhattan, as well as through a letter to Tisch signed by 33 mostly progressive office holders, including Comptroller Brad Lander, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, D-Queens, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado last month recommended dismissing disciplinary charges of improper use of force against the officer, Wayne Isaacs, who, during a road rage incident in Brooklyn in 2016, fatally shot Delrawn Small.

The Civilian Complaint Review Board, which brought the charges, was slated to prosecute Isaacs at a disciplinary trial starting November 19. But Maldonado ruled that the board lacks jurisdiction over off-duty incidents, agreeing with a motion brought by Isaacs’ attorneys.

Tisch is expected to receive arguments from Isaacs’ attorneys and CCRB officials by tomorrow, and there’s no deadline by which she must decide the fate of the disciplinary trial. But her deliberations coincide with a time period when she’s slated to have discussions with incoming mayor Zohran Mamdani about whether and how she can stay put in her role.

Mamdani said during his winning campaign that he would like to keep Tisch as commissioner, but he also said he supports expanding the CCRB’s authority over disciplinary matters.

“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,” City Councilmember Sandy Nurse, D-Brooklyn, said at a small rally outside police headquarters on Thursday. “This is a line in the sand.”

Nurse was among 33 elected officials who signed the letter to Tisch that morning, urging the commissioner to let the disciplinary process 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, said at 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 nearly 10 years, stalled by a criminal prosecution and acquittal, and multiple investigations and lawsuits, that began with the fatal shooting at an East New York intersection on July 4, 2016.

Isaacs has said from the outset that Small approached his vehicle, which was stopped at a red light shortly after he finished his shift at the local precinct, threatened to kill him and assaulted him.

He said he fired his personal gun, not his service weapon, in self-defense.

Within days of the incident, video emerged that supporters of Small say clearly shows that he didn’t throw any punches at Isaacs and didn’t even have time to do so before he was gunned down.

Still, Isaacs was acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges by a Brooklyn jury in late 2017 after a number of jurors believed that video of the incident showed Small throwing a punch, according to the New York Times.

The NYPD’s Force Investigation Division determined the following year that the shooting was justified, but the Civilian Complaint Review Board — which investigates and prosecutes instances of improper use of force by police officers — substantiated three charges of improper use of force against Isaacs in 2020.

Following delays from lawsuits, attorneys for Isaacs filed a pre-trial motion for dismissal with Maldonado in September, contending that the CCRB lacks jurisdiction over off-duty incidents. They argued that Isaacs was in his personal vehicle, in plain clothes and used his personal gun to defend himself.

Maldonado agreed, finding that Isaacs didn’t invoke his authority as a police officer during the shooting, and recommended that Tisch dismiss the case.

But CCRB officials discovered last week that Isaacs’ attorneys had used the opposite argument in a civil lawsuit filed in 2017, in a bid to preclude Isaacs from being held financially liable for any payouts made by the NYPD or city government to Small’s family.

They successfully argued in motion papers in 2019 that the shooting occurred “within the performance of his duties and within the scope of his employment.” Following that, the city paid $125,000 to Small’s partner in a settlement.

Citing the civil lawsuit decision, the CCRB asked Maldonado to reconsider her recommendation, but she declined, according to a source familiar with the NYPD disciplinary process.

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.”

Last week, the interim chair of the CCRB, Dr. Mohammad Khalid, submitted his resignation from the board and chairship after serving in the role for 11 months — citing what he characterized as the negative impacts on his health and family of Hendry’s “campaign of lies against my character,” which he said included referring to him as “anti-cop.”

Hendry responded in a statement that his criticism was factually based on what he described as Khalid’s “biased voting record” and desire to strip authority on disciplinary decisions from the police commissioner.

A number of prior board chairs have also pursued greater power over disciplinary outcomes for NYPD members, which state law gives final authority over to the police commissioner.

At Thursday’s rally, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said the spotlight is now on Tisch, particularly after she recently overruled Maldonado’s recommendation that a cop be terminated for the fatal shooting of fleeing driver Allan Feliz in The Bronx in 2019 following a traffic stop.

“I’m pleading with Commissioner Tisch to do the right thing,” he said 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.