Cops who killed Black gay Bronx man will not face discipline

Following a years-long investigation, New York City police commissioner Edward Caban announced Friday that two police officers would not face disciplinary action for their involvement in the killing of a Black gay man who was having a mental health crisis in his own home.

According to Gothamist, Caban said that officers Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis “acted within the law” when they entered 32-year-old Kawaski Trawick’s Bronx apartment in 2019 and Thompson lethally shot him.

Related:

Family of Black gay man killed by police demand justice

“They murdered my son, and they should have been fired four years ago.”

On the night of April 14, 2019, Trawick, a dancer and personal trainer, called 911 after locking himself out of his apartment at Hill House, a Bronx low-income housing building which a police dispatcher characterized as “a sensitive location” due to past mental health calls, according to a 2020 ProPublica investigation. Four other 911 calls came in that night about Trawick, who reportedly suffered from mental health issues and drug use, including one from the building’s security guard who reported that Trawick was “harassing” neighbors.

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After Trawick falsely reported a fire in the building, firefighters arrived and let him into his apartment. Minutes after firefighters left, Thompson and Davis arrived and entered Trawick’s apartment where they found him holding a staff and a bread knife. Trawick demanded to know why the officers had entered his home. They ignored him and ordered him to drop the knife. When he failed to comply, Thompson, who is white and had been with the NYPD for only three years, took out his taser and then his gun, holding one in each hand. Thompson fired the taser and Trawick charged at the officers, still holding the knife. Thompson then fired four gunshots at Trawick, hitting him twice and killing him.

During the course of the 112-second interaction, Davis, who is Black and had been with the NYPD for 16 years, repeatedly told Thompson not to use force. But according to ProPublica’s investigation, Thompson’s bodycam video and footage from a hallway camera showed that he and Davis did not follow key elements of NYPD training in how to handle and de-escalate encounters with people in crisis, which both officers had received.

In June 2021, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) found the officers guilty of misconduct and voted to seek disciplinary action against them. But in a draft ruling obtained by The City last September, the NYPD’s head of administrative trials recommended no punishment for Thompson and Davis.

Deputy Commissioner Rosemarie Maldonado blamed the CCRB for not filing misconduct charges before a statute of limitations for doing so was up. A timeline included in the draft decision, however, detailed how the NYPD delayed turning over key evidence, including taking a year-and-a-half to provide CCRB investigators with bodycam video of Thompson and Davis’s interaction with Kawaski.

As Gothamist noted, the final decision over whether to discipline Thompson, who remains on active duty, and Davis, who retired this month, was up to Caban, whose announcement Friday was met with fierce criticism.

Trawick’s parents blasted Caban and New York City mayor Eric Adams for the decision, its timing, and the manner in which it was announced.

“Not firing the police who murdered my son in 112 seconds in his home is disgraceful, and the fact that Adams didn’t even let my family know of the decision before making it public is the height of disrespect,” Ellen and Rickie Trawick said in a statement. “Finding out from [the] press late on a Friday, on the weekend that [our] family is mourning the five years since Kawaski was murdered, is unimaginably painful.”

The Trawick family’s attorney, Royce Russell, criticized Caban for failing to discipline the officers for not following patrol guidelines. “It is undisputed [that] had police officers Thompson and Davis followed the police patrol guidelines, Kawaski would be alive today,” he said, according to Gothamist.

In a statement, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams called Caban’s decision “unacceptable.”

“The failure to take any disciplinary action against the NYPD officers who killed Kawaski Trawick is incredibly disturbing and sends the message that our current system is unable to hold officers accountable for the most serious misconduct which takes the life of a New Yorker,” Adams said. “Kawaski’s life was stolen from him; and the ripple effects of this unimaginable tragedy, compounded by the lack of accountability for these officers’ actions, only further erode public trust.”

Bronx city councilmember Pierina Sanchez accused Caban and Mayor Adams of “evading accountability.”

“This this is cowardice on behalf of the leadership of the city of New York,” Sanchez said at a Monday press conference outside City Hall. “Come out here and face us. Face these families. This is infuriating. This is demoralizing.”

“It’s a shameful day when our institutions can’t do something so simple as fire officers who enter someone’s home, who’s cooking, minding his own business in a supportive housing facility,” Sanchez added.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams echoed the frustrations of the crowd gathered at City Hall over officials’ seeming unwillingness to enforce officer protocol and hold Thompson and Davis accountable.

“What do you want us to do?” Williams said. “When you can go into people’s homes and shoot them dead and nothing happens? When we prescribe how to fix it and you don’t do it and you don’t hold any accountability?”

Mayor Adams, a former NYPD officer whose 2021 mayoral campaign is under investigation by the FBI for alleged corruption, responded to the criticism in an email Monday.

“It was crucial that the decision made about the officers involved was carefully considered and I commend NYPD Commissioner Caban for doing just that,” Adams said. “It is vital that we all learn from this loss of life and use it to make positive strides towards better policing and care for those living with severe mental illness.”