Two cops cleared in fatal shoot
Family blasts decision by Bx. DA to not bring charges
An NYPD officer who fatally shot a Bronx man in his apartment doorway in a contentious encounter last year will not face criminal charges, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark announced Wednesday night.
The death of Kawaski Trawick on April 14, 2019 drew questions about how the NYPD responds to calls involving the mentally ill.
In a statement, Clark said her office will not seek criminal charges after a year-long investigation into the shooting, though she will “demand a thoughtful review of police procedures and training techniques.”
According to the police account of his death, the 32-yearold Trawick was brandishing a wooden stick and a knife, and didn’t stay down after being stunned by a Taser at Hill House, a Morris Heights social services center for people struggling with addiction and other issues.
But police reform advocates questioned the series of events leading up to his shooting, and why police didn’t simply close the door on him instead of opening fire.
Police and firefighters responded to dueling 911 calls that night. Trawick himself called the FDNY on the scene, claiming he was locked out and his apartment was on fire, according to the police account.
Firefighters forced the door open and found no fire, and police responded to two more 911 calls alleging that Trawick was threatening neighbors and banging on doors with a large stick.
The responding officers were directed to Trawick’s fourth-floor apartment, where they found the door “unsecured,”NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said the day after the shooting. Trawick charged the officers, weapons in hand, and one of the officers stunned him with a Taser, knocking him down, Monahan said.
He jumped back up and resumed his charge, and after the officers left his apartment, the cop who tased him shot him four times, Monahan said.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who saw body-camera footage of the shooting, questioned the police response in an interview with The City last year.
“He was contained in that apartment,” Williams told the web site. “And so there was no one who was in particular danger. You could have actually just shut the door ... I do feel like there was an opportunity to retreat and close the door and everybody would have been OK.”
Williams also questioned whether the responding officers knew to treat him like an emotionally disturbed person.
Trawick’s mother accused Clark’s office of stonewalling her for more than a year, and blasted her decision not to charge the officer and his partner.
“The officers who killed my son escalated the situation every step of the way by opening the door to his home while he was cooking, then yelling commands at him while he was nowhere near them, then Tasing him while he posed no threat, and then shooting him,” Ellen Trawick said. “They rendered no aid and let him die on the floor.”
Ellen Trawick identified the cop who shot her son as Officer Brendan Thompson, and his partner as Officer Herbert Davis, and said both officers had received crisis intervention training to deal with the mentally ill.
“Officer Brendan Thompson in particular seemed to want to cause harm, he Tased my son after his partner told him not to, and then he shot my son,” she said. “My family and I are demanding that Mayor de Blasio make sure that both of these officers are fired immediately. They are a danger to New Yorkers.”
Last year, Clark’s office refused to show her the body-camera footage unless the community organizers with her left the room, Ellen Trawick said.
She called Trawick a “loving, non-violent person” who had a knife in his hand because he was cooking when police showed up at his door.
Prosecutors did not present the shooting before a grand jury, a spokeswoman for Clark said Wednesday.
Clark said her office will release “a comprehensive and transparent report” in the next few weeks.
The NYPD did immediately respond to a request for comment.