Delay plan to speed buses on 14th St.
Apoliceman who shot my son,” the victim’s father, Vibert Jeune, told reporters Friday outside the New York Ave. home. “We listened to the report compiled [by the DA] yesterday, all that you hear is that the police went in there with a taser drawn.”
“That tells me that they wanted to kill my son, and [they] did kill my son,” the outraged dad said.
Cops were called to the family’s apartment after Jeune’s mother phoned 911 claiming her schizophrenic son had not taken his medication and was acting irrationally.
Gonzalez shot Jeune four times, killing him, when he would not respond to being hit with a taser and moved toward one of the officers with a knife. Another bullet tore through the wall of an adjacent apartment, where a 14-year-old girl was home.
Relatives say they were
told cops tried to resuscitate Jeune after he was hit — but they don’t believe that.
“I was in my room when I heard two shots went off,” Vibert Jeune said. “My wife, who was outside, she came in the room crying and then a female police officer came by the door and my wife asked, ‘Is Dwayne dead?’ and [the officer] said ‘He’s dead,’” the dad recalled.
“We believe that the police acted rashly, acted in a manner that they don’t care for human life,” he said.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — then a City Councilman — had pushed the city to create a task force after the fatal shooting to study how the police department and first responders handle calls involving emotionally-troubled civilians. The task force has yet to release its findings, he said.
“That report was due December 2018. We are now in August of 2019. We have heard nothing,” Williams said. “I have seen the mayor while he’s running for president. But I haven’t seen a report that we asked for two years ago when Dwayne Jeune was killed. That makes no sense. It is a very simple act.”
Jeune’s family, who has a pending $20 million lawsuit against the city, wants the officers involved in the shooting fired.
“What’s most important to this family is that the officer who killed him be disciplined,” their attorney Sanford Rubenstein said. “And they are demanding that the appropriate authorities, the police department have disciplinary proceedings because they believe this police officer should be fired.”
“The family has been having salt put in their wounds by not having this case move forward,” Williams said. New driving rules meant to speed bus and truck traffic on 14th St. by restricting passenger cars have been blocked again by the courts.
State appeals-court judges stayed the city Department of Transportation plan indefinitely Friday while they decide the case.
A Manhattan Supreme Court judge had given the green light to the city’s plan on Tuesday after months of delay.
But neighborhood groups opposed to blocking car traffic on the street are appealing the ruling, which led to the Appellate Division’s stay in the case.
Under rules that were to take effect Monday, passenger cars would have been barred on 14th St. between Third and Ninth Aves. unless they were headed to area garages or dropping people or items off at a curb.
Otherwise, passenger cars would be required to make the next right.
The rules would have been in effect from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Community groups on the 14th St. corridor — which separates Chelsea from Greenwich Village, and the East Village from Stuyvesant Town and Union Square — fear the city’s plan will increase traffic on their streets.
The community groups say in court papers the city must put the project through stringent environmental reviews. “Toxic exhaust fumes” from cars diverted from 14th St. as well as heavier traffic will plague the nearby area, which includes firehouses, several historic districts and parks, the papers say.
The Department of Transportation plan is aimed at increasing bus speeds 30% on 14th St.
The M14 bus, which runs on the street, is one of the city’s slowest.
Transit advocates hope the courts decide the case quickly.
“Every day the busway is on hold wastes 15 days’ worth of time for riders,” said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the Riders Alliance.
He said the community groups fighting the plan are “powerful and wealthy” people who “refuse to accept that it’s time to give bus riders better service.”