Media Contact
Eliel Cruz, press@justicecommittee.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 2, 2024
“It’s been almost five years since my brother Allan Feliz was murdered during an unjust traffic stop and we miss him every single day. While my family and I are relieved that the NYPD has finally served the CCRB’s fireable charges to Lt. Jonathan Rivera for racially profiling, assaulting, tasing, shooting, and then leaving my brother to bleed out in the street with his genitals exposed, it’s unacceptable that it took the NYPD over a year to simply serve charges to one of their employees.
Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Caban’s refusal to discipline NYPD officers that engage in misconduct has kept my family tortured in an emotional limbo with an open wound instead of being able to mourn Allan. The NYPD has been protecting Lt. Rivera by obstructing the discipline process with endless delays for the past 4.5 years - including stalling the CCRB investigation for over two years, blowing past the 18-month deadline for most discipline charges. The NYPD also stopped the CCRB from scheduling Lt. Rivera’s discipline trial by threatening to retain the case from the CCRB for 10 months despite it not meeting the criteria laid out in the MOU. I truly believe the only reason the charges have finally been served is because of my family’s relentless fight to ensure Lt. Rivera is fired and all the groups and elected officials that have continued to support us.
In the midst of this, I was subjected to an unjust traffic stop eerily similar to my brother’s. Officers pulled me over for a phony traffic violation I had not committed and then falsely arrested me. The entire ordeal was traumatic and it’s something that still keeps me from sleeping at night .I still think about how easily my brother’s story could have become mine and I filed a claim, which we recently settled, so there is record of it.
Based on how me, my family and Allan are being treated by the NYPD and the Adams administration, Mayor Adams’ devastating cuts to the CCRB’s budget, the way Mayor Adams and Commissioner Caban handled the Kawaski Trawick, Debra Danner and Delrawn Small cases, and Commission Caban’s rampant burying of police misconduct complaints, my family and I are concerned that without significant pressure Lt. Rivera will be allowed to continue to abuse and murder New Yorkers in spite of the fact that he has record of 34 misconduct allegations and has cost New Yorkers $115,000 in civil suit settlements so far. It’s all too clear that the NYPD will stop at nothing to protect and empower officers who kill and abuse us, and this has only gotten worse under Mayor Adams. However, we will not back down until Lt. Rivera is fired without access to a good guy letter and his pension.
My family is calling on the CCRB to schedule the discipline trial immediately. Ultimately, we call on Mayor Adams and Commissioner Caban to fire Lt. Rivera for murdering Allan. Lt. Rivera and the other officers involved in murdering my brother are a threat to public safety and should have been fired years ago.”
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