Court hears of grim kill by cop
A FOURTH OF JULY party that started with a family barbecue ended with a woman watching in horror as the father of her baby was gunned down by an off-duty cop in a Brooklyn road-rage incident.
“He was grunting, making noises, seen blood all over, he was leaking out — just leaking,” a distraught Zaquanna Albert told a Brooklyn jury Wednesday about the last moments of Delrawn Small’s life.
She testified that she frantically told her 14-year-old daughter to call 911 before running to her boyfriend’s side while his killer — NYPD Officer Wayne Isaacs — walked away.
“I shouted . . . ‘Why did you shoot? Why did you shoot?’ ” Albert said, recounting how she ran to Small as he lay facedown and bleeding on the concrete near Bradford St. and Atlantic Ave. just after midnight on July 4, 2016.
In a 911 recording played for jurors in Brooklyn Supreme Court Wednesday, Albert was heard screaming in the background.
“Oh, my God! What did you do?” she cried. Isaacs, 38, also called 911. “I’m a police officer, and I was attacked,” he said.
He did not mention to the dispatcher that he fired his weapon or that someone was shot, but did request an ambulance twice.
Albert and Small were unaware that Isaacs, who had finished a shift at the 79th Precinct just 30 minutes earlier, was a cop.
Isaacs now faces second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter charges that could land him in prison for 25 years to life.
He claims he fired his service weapon in self-defense because Small, 37, punched him in the face after the two men confronted each other.
Albert told the jury that Isaacs cut them off, sparking the altercation.
Surveillance video that surfaced a week later appears to contradict Isaacs’ claim that Small was the aggressor.
Small’s death is the first homicide case the state attorney general’s office is prosecuting under Gov. Cuomo’s 2015 executive order to investigate deaths of unarmed civilians at the hands of police officers.
Before the deadly encounter, Small and his family spent the afternoon at a barbecue on Williams St. in East New York, where Small had three rum punches and Albert had one drink over an eight-hour span, she told the jury.Around 11:30 p.m., Albert, a candidate for a master’s degree in social work, told her boyfriend that she needed to go to finish a paper for school.
Albert, 37, borrowed her stepsister’s Kia, and Small drove to their home on Sunnyside Ave. to gather clothes for her 9-year-old daughter to have a sleepover.
The couple of five years headed south on Williams St. with their 3-month-old son and oldest daughter in the back.
“(Delrawn) was driving regular when a car cut us off,” Albert recalled.
The cars pulled up to Atlantic Ave. and Bradford St. with Albert in the left lane and Isaacs in the right lane.
“Delrawn took his seat belt off. I told him not to get out. I had no time for nonsense. I really wanted to get home and finish my paper, but he got out anyway,” Albert said, grabbing tissues from a box placed in front of her on the witness stand.
Albert said that as Small walked over to Isaacs’ car, the irate driver rolled down his window.
“Delrawn wasn’t screaming or running. He just walked over saying ‘What the f--k is wrong with you? You cut us off,’ while clapping his hands and he got shot,” Albert sobbed.
Albert saw a spark and saw Small twist his body.
He hit a parked car and fell to the ground, she said.
“(Isaacs) walked over to the body, he looked at him, walked away back to his car,” she said.
Isaacs didn’t try to give the bleeding man CPR or assist with his wounds, according to Albert.
Prosecutors said Small died within 10 to 15 seconds.