Family members of the late Kawaski Trawick, Allan Feliz and Antonio Williams — all killed by police in separate incidents — gathered with advocates and elected officials behind City Hall on Oct. 12 to call on the NYPD commissioner to fire the cops who killed their loved ones and stop slow-footing cases that have dragged on for years. The family of Delrawn Small, who was also killed by police, was unable to attend but intended to join advocates.
“”NYPD stop the lies,” advocates chanted together at the pedestrian plaza between City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge. “Fire cops that take our lives!”
The families united together to underscore what they described as an ongoing pattern of deliberate delays by the NYPD to drag cases beyond the usual statute of limitations when authorities can be held accountable for wrongdoing. The advocates cited a deputy NYPD commissioner’s recent recommendation against punishing the police officers in the Trawick case, which stems from 2019 when Officers Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis entered Trawick’s apartment as he was cooking and shot him in less than two minutes. The case led the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) to substantiate multiple misconduct charges against the officers, but the board said it took the NYPD 19 months to present video footage to the CCRB, according to the New York Times
Mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference on Oct. 10 that Police Commissioner Edward Caban would “find out [what] was the delay on our part, exactly what happened in the delay, because we don’t want to interfere with the wheels of justice. It can’t happen on our end, so he’s looking into that.”
