Elected Officials Join Delrawn Small’s Family to Demand Commissioner Tisch Ensures Discipline Trial for Officer Wayne Isaacs Proceeds

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, November 13, 2025

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Tess Weiner, tess@justicecommittee.org, 224.213.5495

Grace Goodwin, grace@spitfirestrategies.com, 207-248-1009 

Elected Officials Join Delrawn Small’s Family to Demand Commissioner Tisch Ensures Discipline Trial for Officer Wayne Isaacs Proceeds

33 elected officials send a letter to Tisch, urging her to reject outrageous recommendation to dismiss charges

New York, NY — Today, the family of Delrawn Small was joined by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Councilmembers Sandy Nurse and Christopher Marte, and community groups to demand that NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch uphold the charges against Officer Wayne Isaacs for killing Mr. Small in front of his family nearly a decade ago and ensure Isaacs’ discipline trial moves forward next week. The rally follows a shocking recommendation from Deputy Commissioner of Trials (DCT) Rosemarie Maldonado to drop discipline charges against Isaacs just two weeks before his long-awaited discipline trial was scheduled to begin on November 19.

“My nephew, Delrawn’s son, was only 4 months old when his father was taken from him. He is now 9 years old,” said Victoria Davis (she/her), Mr. Small’s sister.  “There is simply no excuse for how long we’ve been here, begging for one single cop to be fired. Commissioner Tisch, this in your hands now: you have a chance to do what’s right. Reject Maldonado’s outrageous recommendation, uphold the charges, and ensure Isaacs’ faces his disciplinary trial at long last. No more games, no more delays.”

This morning, 33 elected officials sent a letter to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, urging her to reject Maldonado’s recommendation and ensure Isaacs’ long-overdue discipline trial proceeds without further interference. The letter was cced to Mayor Eric Adams and Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani.

“Nearly a decade after Officer Isaacs horrifically took Delrawn’s life, there has been little progress towards justice,”said Council Member Sandy Nurse (she/her). “We are entering a new era towards responsible public safety in this city. Delrawn can’t be brought back, but Commissioner Tisch can still do right by his family by bringing Officer Isaacs to account.”  

“As elected officials who are committed to building a safer and more just New York, we are deeply alarmed by Officer Isaacs’ self-serving legal distortions and the DCT’s faulty stance on this matter, ” the letter states. “Isaacs and his attorneys cannot both claim he was acting as an NYPD officer to defend him from liability and secure indemnification in federal court, and now claim he was not acting as an officer to evade discipline. Unfortunately, DCT Maldonado was fooled by these antics. We urge you not to be.”

The final decision to hold the charge against Isaacs or follow Maldonado’s recommendation now rests with NYPD Commissioner Tisch and is poised to become her first major decision on police accountability since Mamdani’s victory and as her continued leadership of the NYPD is debated. 

“Mayor-Elect Mamdani should pay close attention to what Commissioner Tisch does regarding Delrawn Small’s case because it will indicate whether she is continuing to make politically-motivated decisions that protect abusive officers over New Yorkers or if she is ready to take police accountability seriously,” said Loyda Colón (they/them). “If the Mayor-Elect truly wants to usher in a New York that is safe and liveable for all, he needs to prioritize police accountability and he needs a commissioner who will do so as well.”

“Dismissing the charges against Officer Isaacs after Mr. Small’s family has fought for nearly a decade to ensure he faces some level of accountability would be a gross miscarriage of justice and would send a dangerous message about the direction of police accountability as New York enters a new mayoral administration,” the letter states.

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BACKGROUND: 

On July 4, 2016 Officer Wayne Isaacs shot and killed Delrawn Small in front of his four-month-old son, step-daughter and girlfriend. Isaacs had been driving erratically down Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn and had cut Mr. Small’s car off several times. When Mr. Small approached Isaacs’ car, Isaacs - who was off-duty at the time - fired his weapon out of the window, shot Mr. Small three times, and left him to bleed out in the street without offering any aid, all in plain view of Mr. Small’s family. Mr. Small was 37-years-old and unarmed.

Officer Isaacs was charged and prosecuted for murder by the NYS Attorney General’s office in the first case the office prosecuted after Governor Cuomo's 2015 executive order authorizing the AG to investigate police killings. 

The Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) substantiated fireable misconduct charges against Officer Isaacs in October 2020, but the NYPD delayed serving the charges for almost a year. In October 2021, after Isaacs refused to give the CCRB access, the CCRB was forced to file a motion to unseal Isaacs’ murder trial records. In February 2022, the New York State Supreme Court Judge Verna L. Saunders dismissed NYPD Officer Wayne Isaacs’ Article 78 lawsuit, filed in March 2021, the police union’s baseless attempt to block his long-delayed discipline trial. In March 2023, Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Danny Chun finally ruled in favor of the CCRB’s unsealing motion, but Isaacs’ attorneys immediately appealed the decision. In March 2025, the Supreme Court Second Appellate Division ruled in favor of the police union’s appeal. 

In September 2025, Isaacs’ discipline trial was scheduled for November 19. In response,  Isaacs and his police union attorneys once again requested the NYPD Commissioner invoke provision 2 in an effort to block the CCRB’s prosecution of Isaacs and to delay the disciplinary trial – a request that Commissioner Tisch denied, as did former Commissioner Sewell in March 2022. In response to Isaacs’ attorneys’ motion, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado has recommended all charges be dismissed against Officer Isaacs and canceled the scheduled trial. In recommending the dismissal of charges, DCT Maldonado erroneously sided with Isaacs’ attorneys’ claims that this case falls outside of the CCRB’s jurisdiction because Officer Isaacs was not acting as a police officer at the time that he killed Mr. Small. For years, Isaacs' attorneys have sought to defend him by arguing that he was acting in his capacity as a police officer when he killed Mr. Small and a federal court and the Attorney General's Office have found his actions to be such as well.The decision to follow Maldonado’s recommendation, or to uphold the charges and allow Isaacs’ discipline trial to proceed, is now in the hands of Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. 

Officer Isaacs killed Mr. Small just one day before Alton Sterling was killed by police in Louisiana and two days prior to Philando Castile being killed by police in Minnesota. Officers in both cases are no longer with their respective police departments, while the NYPD still employs Isaacs.

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About Justice Committee:

Since the 1980s, the Justice Committee (JC) has been dedicated to building a movement against police violence and systemic racism in New York City. The heart of our work is organizing and uplifting the leadership of families who have lost loved ones to the police and survivors of police violence.  We empower our community to deter police violence, hold law enforcement accountable, and build people-led community safety through grassroots organizing campaigns, community empowerment, political education, our CopWatch program, and by developing safety mechanisms and projects that decrease reliance on police. By building solidarity with other anti-racist, immigrant and people of color-led organizations, the Justice Committee seeks to contribute to a broad-based movement for racial, social, and economic justice. 

About Communities United for Police Reform:

Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) is an unprecedented campaign to end discriminatory and abusive policing practices in New York, and to build a lasting movement that promotes public safety and reduces reliance on policing. CPR runs coalitions of over 200 local, statewide and national organizations, bringing together a movement of community members, grassroots organizers, lawyers, researchers and activists to work for change.