Family Of Man Shot By Off-Duty NYPD Cop Meets With NY Attorney General
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The family of a Brooklyn man who was killed by an off-duty NYPD officer in a confrontation at a car window demanded justice after a meeting with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Friday.
Delrawn Small was killed July 4 in what was called a road rage incident.
The unarmed Small, 37, was in a car with his companion, Zaquanna Albert, when they crossed paths with Officer Wayne Isaacs as he headed home from work in civilian clothes.
Albert told police Small thought Isaacs had cut him off and got out of his car at a stoplight to confront the officer.
Based on a preliminary investigation, police initially said they believed Isaacs opened fire after Small reached through the officer's open window and repeatedly hit him in the head as he sat behind the wheel.
As CBS2's Alice Gainer reported,cell phone video shows Small approach Isaac's car, but it's what happened next that's in dispute.
In the grainy black-and-white video, virtually the moment Small walks up to the window, he recoils, stumbles and collapses, with no clear indication that he first lashed out at the officer. The officer briefly exits his car and looks in the fallen man's direction but then returns to the car.
Joined by Assemblyman Charles Barron, Small's family reacted to the video on Friday.
"We are going to get justice --- because that video shows that guy (the officer) was outright wrong,'' his brother, Victor Dempsey, said Thursday.
Small's relatives want Isaacs to be criminally charged.
"Case closed, what more do you need? There's no way you can get a punch out of that video," Barron said.
To Dempsey, his brother's death bespeaks police abusing deadly force and their power, regardless of race.
"We have to change the way we look at each other as humans in our own society,'' he said Thursday at a news conference, flanked by relatives of more than a half-dozen other people killed by law enforcement officers over the past two decades. All were members of the organization Families United 4 Justice, which is raising money to aid Small's family.
Small and Albert had a 4-month-old son together.
"He was the structure that I needed in my life,'' she said, "and he's gone.''
Schneiderman said he met with the family to express his condolences and explain his role as special prosecutor on the case.
The officer has been stripped of his badge and gun as police and the state attorney general's office investigate. The union representing him has declined to comment.
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