NYPD Recommends No Punishment for Officers Who Shot Kawaski Trawick

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll look now at the NYPD killing of Kawaski Trawick and the questionable result of the investigation into that killing by an NYPD administrative judge. One central question, did the NYPD game the system through repeated delays in cooperating with the investigation, effectively running out the clock? With us for this is Yoav Gonen, senior reporter for the nonprofit news organization, The City. He broke the story this week about the administrative judge's ruling. Yoav, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Yoav Gonen: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Many, if not most, of our listeners do not know the story of the killing of Kawaski Trawick I think it's safe to say. Would you start by taking us back to the incident in 2019? Who was Kawaski Trawick and why did police come to his home?

Yoav Gonen: Kawaski Trawick was a 32-year-old personal trainer and dancer. He was living in a supportive housing unit in The Bronx. This was back in April 2019. That's a building that provides services for people who have challenges with things like mental health and addiction, substance addiction. That night he got locked out of his apartment door. He went into the hallway and started banging on some doors and apparently shouting through the door. It was reported to 911 as harassment.

Kawasaki himself also called 911 because he had been locked out of his apartment and he wasn't getting help from the building super. The first emergency personnel to arrive were the firefighters. They basically broke his lock and let him into his apartment without incident. Then about seven minutes later, two police officers arrived at his door.

Brian Lehrer: What happened when they got there, or what are the competing versions of what happened when they got there?

Yoav Gonen: Well, there's video that shows what happens when they arrived. They basically pried the door open, the lock was broken, but apparently, the chain was on the door. They saw him in the kitchen--

Brian Lehrer: You mean he was already inside by himself in his own apartment and police broke in?

Yoav Gonen: That's right. The door was a bit ajar because the lock had been broken, but he had used the chain on the door to keep it from opening all the way.

Brian Lehrer: Why did they do that?

Yoav Gonen: Well, they were responding to the calls of a tenant harassing other people and apparently the super said that Trawick had threatened to punch him. They were looking into complaints that someone in the building was harassing other people, and they got sent to his apartment as a person who was doing it. When they pried the door open, they saw him in his kitchen cooking. He was in his underwear. He was holding a long four-foot stick in one hand and he was holding a serrated bread knife in the other hand. Immediately he asked them, "Why are you in my home?" Instead of responding to him, the officers said, "Drop the knife, drop the knife."

He kept asking, "Why are you in my home?" They kept saying, "Drop the knife." They wouldn't answer his question. Within under a minute, one of the cops, the younger officer, Brendan Thompson, fired his taser at Trawick even though his partner had asked him not to. Until that point, Trawick had a calm demeanor. After he got hit with the taser, he fell on the ground and when he got up, he was agitated. They move toward him. He moved away to the other side of his apartment. Then he started moving toward them and as soon as he did, Thompson fired four shots, two of them hit him and he died.

Brian Lehrer: Was he still holding the serrated knife at that point when he moved toward them? Do you know?

Yoav Gonen: I've seen different versions of it, but some of the reports on the incident say that after he fell, he did pick up the knife, after he was knocked down.

Brian Lehrer: How did the case wind up being investigated by the CCRB, the Civilian Complaint Review Board?

Yoav Gonen: Well, their purview includes improper use of force. Also, improper entry into someone's home, which this case had an element of. Also on the back end, the officers did call an ambulance after they shot Trawick, but they did not give him any aid. There was an accusation that they failed to give him medical treatment when they should have. All those things fall under the CCRB's purview.

Brian Lehrer: Then the way this works is, the CCRB investigates the case, comes up with a finding, and then an NYPD administrative judge has to rule one way or another on that finding?

Yoav Gonen: Yes, and there were a number of other entities that investigated this. The Bronx DA looked into it to see if there was any criminality by the cops in November 2020. Actually, in August 2020, Darcel Clark determined that there wasn't enough evidence to try them for a criminal act. The NYPD Force Investigation Division, which investigates all shootings and tasings, they investigated as well and they determined that there was no misconduct by the officers. The CCRB separately investigates, but they were told to hold off by the Bronx DA, so they had to wait a little bit before they could investigate. Also, they rely on the NYPD to turn over evidence to them before they can fully investigate.

Brian Lehrer: Now, the administrative judge, according to your reporting, blamed the Civilian Complaint Review Board, not the NYPD, for what she called hijacking the disciplinary trial. Why did she come to that conclusion, and how did that play into the judge deciding no discipline was required?

Yoav Gonen: Right. The issue there is that there's an 18-month statute of limitations for serving disciplinary charges against officers. If you miss that deadline, the only acts that would constitute crimes under New York penal law can be prosecuted in these administrative hearings. In this case, the deadline was not met by the CCRB. The bar of proof was much higher in this administrative trial from the outset. However, the CCRB was largely blameless for missing the deadline. In reality, it was the NYPD that withheld body cam footage for over a year and a half.

The administrative judge completely ignored that factor in her decision. She recommended no discipline for the officers because she determined that the CCRB didn't prove a crime was committed. She hinted in her decision, she actually suggested that there did appear to be violations of the NYPD patrol guide in how the officers handled the situation, but she essentially said, "My hands are tied because the CCRB missed the deadline, so it's on them."

Brian Lehrer: Your reporting indicates that it really should be at least perhaps on the NYPD because they withheld the body cam footage for so long. Under what rules-- Oh, go ahead. You want to correct that in any way?

Yoav Gonen: No, that's right. That creates a real problem that if the NYPD can intentionally or not delay an investigation by the CCRB, which is an independent outside agency, if they can delay it to the point that the CCRB misses a mandatory deadline for bringing charges, and then on the back end, you have an administrative judge who is an employee of the police department, and she determines, "Well, because the CCRB brought the charges so late, we're going to have to have a higher bar of proof in order for these police officers to be disciplined." In the words of Ellen Trawick, the mom of Kawaski, that's a rigged system.

Brian Lehrer: Why is the system such that an NYPD employee, rather than somebody independent, gets to be the judge who has the final say over whether an officer should be disciplined?

Yoav Gonen: Actually, I should note. The administrative judge's decision is actually a recommendation. It's the final recommendation before the case goes to the police commissioner. The police commissioner has wide latitude to do whatever he wants in this case. He can agree with the judge's decision or he could decide it's totally off base and terminate either or both of these officers although that's probably highly unlikely. There have been a lot of calls in recent years to move the authority for the final determination of these cases away from the police commissioner and perhaps to some independent entity. I believe that would require a change in state law.

Brian Lehrer: Is this part of a pattern that the NYPD withholds body cam footage or other evidence from these administrative judges in cases where a police officer is being investigated thereby running out the clock?

Yoav Gonen: Certainly it's a common trend that CCRB has been complaining about this issue about-- It's the turning over of the body cam footage to the CCRB that's been an issue since at least 2020. That was only a few years after all police officers received the body cams. One of the things is that there are cities in this country where the civilian review boards or outside entities have direct access to all the footage of the police department. Their investigators can go in and on their own search through the whole trove of body cam footage in the police department's possession.

There is a bill in the city council now to change that here so the CCRB doesn't have to wait for the police department to turn things over, that they can just access the footage themselves. Certainly, over the past few years, the CCRB has highlighted this issue of delays in getting evidence time and time again.

Brian Lehrer: Do you know if that Bill you just referred to in city council has majority support and is likely to pass?

Yoav Gonen: I am not sure, to be honest. It had a hearing back in March, which is a long time ago, for a Bill that did have majority support. I guess ultimately I'm not sure but it doesn't sound like it's moving at the pace of a Bill that does.

Brian Lehrer: We're talking about the NYPD killing of Kawaski Trawick in 2019 and the questionable result of the investigation into that killing by an NYPD administrative judge that is the result coming from the judge. One central question, did the NYPD game the system through repeated delays in cooperating with the investigation, effectively running out the clock because the judge said her hands were tied from imposing or recommending to the commissioner some discipline that she said might have been warranted had the timeline not expired?

We'll take a few phone calls on this now with our guest, Yoav Gonen, senior reporter for the nonprofit news organization, The City. He broke the story this week of that administrative judge's ruling. Jawanza in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Jawanza.

Jawanza: I'm Jawanza and just for listeners to know, I'm associated to an organization called VOCAL-NY. It's a member organization of Communities United for Police Reform. We've been working with Justice Committee and organizations that works closely with the Trawick family trying to get justice for Kawaski. I second almost everything that your guest has said. I just want to drive home for New Yorkers that are interested that, number one, Kawaski was a person that was dealing with a mental health complexity, and Kawaski was in supportive housing.

Supportive housing is made specifically for these kinds of dynamics. The fact that a person with mental health complexities could still be killed inside of supportive housing should [unintelligible 00:14:42] many New Yorkers because if people with mental illnesses are not safe even in supportive housing, then where are they safe? That's number one.

Number two, as the guest also said, this report or this recommendation to not have any disciplinary action against the officers who killed Kawaski is only a recommendation that the NYPD Commissioner, Edward Caban, can still fire these two officers.

Ultimately that means that Mayor Eric Adams has an opportunity to say to Black New Yorkers, to LGBTQ New Yorkers, to New Yorkers with mental health complexities, that they are safe in this city and that if NYPD officers extrajudiciously kill someone, if they break into your apartment, that they will at least be held accountable. Trawicks have sat through these hearings, this sham trial, and all they are asking for-- they live all the way in Georgia. They've been here several times to call for justice for their beautiful son who was killed.

For this, NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Maldonado, who's not really a judge in the sense that New Yorkers understand it, but an employee at the NYPD, to essentially perform as if she's the defense for the officers, it was incredibly offensive. Just to see the Trawicks in that space, his sisters, his mother, his father, have to watch that violent graphic video several times, and then to have this kind of recommendation come out, is a slap in the face of the Trawicks. It's a slap in the face of Black New Yorkers. It's a slap in the face of LGBTQ people in the city who are unsafe and that includes at the hand of the police. The mayor should respond.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for all that, Jawanza. Let me read you one little line from Yoav's article on this and see if you have any thoughts on it. He reports that, "In her analysis, Maldonado, in her role as judge, raised multiple questions about whether Officer Thompson violated the Department's procedure for dealing with people in emotional crisis referred to in police parlance as EDPs. Did you happen to see or are familiar anyway with what those questions may have been about Department procedure for dealing with people in emotional crisis and how they may have been violated in this case?

Jawanza: I can't speak specifically to that but I'm certain that Department procedure is not to kill someone who's having a mental health episode, who's living in supportive housing. To me, it's a non-starter. It's common sense that people-- even inside of the supportive housing unit, there's other questions at play here. I think at the end of the day, the NYPD, unlike the FDNY, came into a building and instead of rendering aid to Kawaski like the firefighters did, they instead tased and then shot at him four times and hitting him twice and killing him.

I just don't know how we can be confident in our police protection in the city of New York if whenever we're at our worst states or whenever we're at our most vulnerable, that we are subject to bullets and electricity and then for there to be no accountability. It's been 4 years and 20 months of obstruction, hiding videos. This is not democracy. That's the kind of action and activity of a very violent trend in this country.

The last thing I'll say, Brian, because we're actually about to have a press conference about this very matter, is that I want to ask Mayor Eric Adams, number one, why have you not said Kawaski's name? Number one. It begs the question, and every New Yorker should ask, does this blue wall of silence extend into City Hall, and if it does, then what does that mean for democracy in the city of New York? What does it mean to Black people? What does it mean to poor people, to LGBTQ people, and to people dealing with mental health complexities like Kawaski was, who came to this city to realize his dreams like so many of us have for hundreds of years?

Brian Lehrer: Jawanza, thanks so much for calling us. We really appreciate it. Yoav, has Mayor Adams never said Kawaski Trawick's name, or has he addressed the case in any way?

Yoav Gonen: Not to my recollection actually, and I do want to touch on one point. The caller was right in highlighting the issue of people going through mental health crises. The police department does not have a good track record in dealing with those issues. There was a recent five-year stretch where at least 15 people in mental health crises were killed by police who were responding and the city is piloting an initiative that would route mental health calls not to the police department but rather to social service workers. The issue is in the early stages of that pilot. Very, very few calls were routed away from the police department.

Brian Lehrer: In fact, I see in your reporting near the part that I cited to the caller that you write, "The NYPD patrol guide section on dealing with people with mental health or emotional crises starts with the observation that 'The primary duty of all members of the service is to preserve human life.' It advises officers to call in units that are specially trained to deal with individuals in crisis to try to de-escalate the situation and not provoke."

I guess the NYPD's response to that would be, "Well, once you get to the situation where somebody is coming toward you with a knife, then you don't have the luxury to call in that backup of emotional health experts." The whole incident in Trawick's home that resulted in his death, as you reported, was only about two minutes. It does seem from your descriptions that there were moments at the beginning of that, where perhaps they could have called for backup while the standoff was taking place while he was holding the knife in the stick but were standing still. Perhaps.

Yoav Gonen: Absolutely. ProPublica who has done some great reporting on this incident, they talked to policing experts. They showed them the video of what happened. One of them said that this video should be shown in a police academy as a textbook example of what not to do. The issue was, the officer, particularly Brendan Thompson, that was escalating the situation because the number one thing you are supposed to do at the beginning is de-escalate.

I think perhaps Trawick was just looking for an answer to why are you guys in my home. It's a very reasonable question. Instead of addressing him, trying to de-escalate, he issued a series of more and more aggressive commands to drop the knife when Trawick was just standing still quite a distance away from them. A lot of the experts who have seen the video do fault the officers, and particularly Thompson, for his response at the beginning.

Brian Lehrer: Bob in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bob.

Bob: Hi. How are you? Thanks for taking the call. I'm a long time longtime.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Bob: Two possible solutions. Because there are so many instances where the NYPD has been dealing with members of the disabled community as though they were able-bodied persons. Certainly ignoring the disability themselves seems to be a long list of that. I think the disability community should get together as a group and file a class action suit against the NYPD on any number of grounds, the ADA grounds, equal protection grounds, whatsoever.

Number two, I think that it would be interesting if we changed the rule. Currently, any judgments against the NYPD that require payment come out of the city's general fund. That rule should be changed so that social judgments come out of the NYPD budget itself, which is pretty huge. Those two things together would, I think, yield a little more self-policing, and what I think would cut down a lot on the brutalities that we see from time to time.

Brian Lehrer: Bob, thank you very much. One more call before we run out of time. Charles in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Charles.

Charles: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciated your program. I'm a psychiatrist that had worked in the city. I run a psych unit in the city hospital. When I first got there, we knew we would need, on occasion, the force that the security guards would have. I requested the administration to allow the city guards to rotate through psychiatry. Initially, they would refer to all the patients as emotionally disturbed people, but as they were included in our service, they were very helpful. If they were not found at their usual duty stations, they would wind up in psychiatry because we respected what they had to do and allowed them.

I think that it could be arranged that every policeman is rotated through a psych unit run by the city. That would benefit everybody. Every police involvement, it involves some psychological issue, whether on the behalf of the policeman or on behalf of the individual that's the perpetrator.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, or probably both in most cases. Charles, thank you very much. Do you know, Yoav, if NYPD training includes anything like Charles was just describing?

Yoav Gonen: As far as [unintelligible 00:25:52] through?

Brian Lehrer: Putting them in, I guess, in psych inpatient units just to get a sense of what people are struggling with in extreme cases.

Yoav Gonen: It's nothing that I heard that they do, but certainly, the specialized units get a lot more training. It's feasible that those specific units do but broadly, obviously the vast majority of the force does not.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. The first caller we talked about having some press conference or event today or something like this to draw more attention to this and to the fact that Police Commissioner Caban and I guess the mayor himself, could overrule the NYPD administrative judge here and find on the merits rather than on the technicality of missing the deadline. Do you have any reason to believe that Caban or Adams may do that?

Yoav Gonen: Well, technically the power as proposed by law lie with Caban, the police commissioner. Obviously, if the mayor has a strong opinion, he'll communicate that to Caban. I think this is going to be his first big high-profile decision as far as it goes with police accountability. He might have had one benefiting case recently, but this one is very public and has gotten a lot of attention. It'll be interesting to see how it goes. He has the luxury of relying on the recommendation that came to him. It's far easier for him to go along with that decision than to back it, especially in a way that's against the officers.

Brian Lehrer: Yoav Gonen, and senior reporter for the non-profit news organization, The City. Thank you so much for coming on with us.

Yoav Gonen: Thank you, Brian.

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