Protests against police brutality erupted across the United States over the weekend, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets and blocking roads, bridges highways in cities including Chicago, Atlanta, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Rochester, New York. Hundreds were arrested nationwide, including more than 100 in Baton Rouge, where two white police officers killed Alton Sterling, the African-American father of five, last Tuesday. In Minnesota, more than 100 people were arrested on Saturday night on Interstate 94 during a standoff with police, during which officers in riot gear threw smoke bombs and pepper spray. Protests have rocked Minnesota since a police officer shot and killed Philando Castile, another African-American man shot during a traffic stop by an officer for a broken tail light.
While the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile have sparked a recent wave of protests, we’re beginning today’s show looking at another police shooting from last week that has received far less national attention. Shortly after midnight on July 4, an off-duty New York police officer shot and killed an unarmed African-American man from Brooklyn after a traffic incident. Police officials said the officer, Wayne Isaacs, opened fire using his police gun after the man, Delrawn Small, approached his vehicle and punched him in the face. But newly released surveillance video counters that claim. The grainy black and white video shows the off-duty officer shooting Small as soon as he approached his vehicle. It does not appear to show Small punching Isaacs. Small then stumbles away and collapses on the street between two parked cars. Isaacs, the off duty officer, then gets out of his car, appearing to tuck his gun into his waistband as he walks toward small, surveys the scene, does not bend over to help him. He then returns to his car. Witnesses said the incident began when Isaacs cut off small’s car. Delrawn Small’s girlfriend, their 4-month-old son and her two daughters witnessed the shooting from the car.
New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation into the shooting. In a statement released Friday, Schneiderman said, “As Special Prosecutor, I am committed to conducting a full, fair, and independent investigation of this tragedy, and will follow the facts and evidence — including this video evidence — wherever they lead. My heart goes out to the Small family during this painful period,” The New York Attorney General Said. The New York Daily News reports the officer involved in the shooting, Wayne Isaacs, was accused in a 2014 lawsuit with a false arrest in which the suspect was “punched, kicked and struck several times in the head and body.” The plaintiff also charged that one of the arresting cops called him the n-word before the case was settled for $20,000.
Roger Wareham talking:
On Independence Day, of all days. The, the — Delrawn and his girlfriend, Zaquanna, uh, Albert, were returning from a barbecue and they were going up Atlantic Avenue, or down Atlantic Avenue when this car cut them off — I think, at least twice. And when they came to a stop light, Mr. small got out and went up to the cop and said — well, he didn’t know it was a cop. He just went up to the person and said, what are you doing? I have my family in this car. And that’s as far as it got. Then there were the three shots. And he was, you know, he hit the ground.
The video is very instructive in terms it shows that the cop had no urgency around what was happening. You see him, he gets out the car. He’s very casual. He walks over. He looks down. He does — you said he doesn’t even bend over to touch him to see if he’s — if he’s alive, and walks — strolls back to his car. So, it’s a very — I think the video is very instructive in terms of just the cold-blooded nature of what happened, and that the cops attitude was, this was nothing more than if I had stepped on an ant.
The state Attorney General’s office has taken over the — this prosecution or this investigation. Depending, of course, on the New York City Police Department to collect the information because it doesn’t have its own independent unit. We understand that supposedly a call was made. The thing that stands out is, had this been a civilian who shot an unarmed civilian, whether he had a license for a gun or not, he would have been arrested, and to this day, there has been no arrest. I think that’s the thing that stands out, that there’s a —- always has been a double standard in terms of how the police are treated when they are involved in the shooting of civ— of civilians. And this is no different. It sends a — it sends a message to the police department that they are apart from the same rules that affect everybody else in society. And I think that’s one of the reasons that underly the continuing protests.
I think the key question is not whether he has been put on administrative leave, the key question is he should be arrested. He should have been arrested and he should be arrested at this point. You know, even — even before the video came out, he should have been arrested because, even if his story, his version of events were true, there was no justification for the use of lethal force. He says that Delrawn Small was punching him. He was sitting at the wheel of his car. He could have driven off. He could have rolled up the window. He could have done anything short of shooting Delrawn Small. What the video indicates is that he was lying when he said that and that there was even less justification for what he did but it was reflective of an attitude that I can do anything I want in the black or Latino community because I know from history that I’m not gonna be punished for it.
it’s like before the video, it was as if, if there were no video this didn’t happen. So, when they talked about the murders of black men during the week of July 4, it was just these two, and nothing around Delrawn Small. Although, it happened on the Fourth of July before the other ones and initially there was some press coverage, at least in New York, around that. But, it’s almost as if, if there is no video, there is no crime committed. Now that the video has surfaced, they’re not even, as you said, they’re not even addressing it. Bratton was on national TV all day yesterday and never mentioned that, oh, yeah, New York, we do have a problem because we have an off-duty cop who, in cold-blooded, killed an inno—- an unarmed man. And so it’s, you know, they’re trying to do a spin on it.
there’s a mythology that if you put more black bodies or black faces in the department, you’re gonna get a — you’re gonna bridge the divide between the community and the police department. And what it doesn’t deal with is that, it’s not simply changing bodies or changing faces. You have to change the culture of the police department. And the culture of the police department, not only in New York City, but across the country, is one of white supremacy. It’s a culture that exists outside the police department, but is even more intensified within the police department. And given how the criminal justice system deals with police officers who have committed crimes and committed murders, in almost no instances are they even arrested, much less indicted, prosecuted, or, God forbid, go to jail. Their behavior gets reinforced. They’re like — they have a double 0 in front of their — in front of their shields, which is a license to kill. And if that culture isn’t addressed, you end up with the same result.
In apartheid South Africa, there were black policeman who enforced apartheid laws against — in the townships. So, it wasn’t simply having a black person doing it, it was the culture and it is the culture in the United States of the police department across the United States, which is why you find the disproportionate numbers of blacks and Latinos that are killed, people of color that are killed by the police, particularly black males.
– Wayne Isaacs is African-American, the off-duty police officer. Delrawn Small was African-American.
His four-month-old was in the car. It’s — the family is coping, but, you know, black folks deal with tragedy. And I think the point one of the family members made — you know, I used to watch — we were at a press conference with assemblyman — state Assemblyman Charles Barron and she said — and I used to watch her on TV and I would see you there with pict — and — but I never thought it would be me, that I would be standing here with you because someone in my family got killed. And I think that’s the lesson for — and that’s the lesson that black people take out is that we’re born having committed a capital offense, which is breathing while black. And as the economic crisis in the United States worsens and people looking for explanations for why their lives are getting worse, the fallback in this country has always been that it’s black folks fault. And when you compound that with the militarization of the police department, you know, all the different weapons, the response you saw in Ferguson when the protests began. The militarization of police departments across the country, and not simply physical equipment, but it’s also a mentality of I’m a member of an armed force, not just a paramilitary force, an armed force, and I’m approaching the enemy, and the black community is viewed as the enemy. So then, you can get the type of response you see in that video with Delrawn Small where the cop gets out of his car, just strolls over — there’s no urgency to it — looks down, walks away and strolls back because I’ve just killed a member of the — I’ve killed an enemy force enemy — a member of the enemy force.
at this point, that is a question — should be a question addressed to the New York State Attorney General around why he hasn’t been arrested because there’s no justification based upon the video or even the reasons he gave for why he killed him.
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Roger Wareham
attorney representing Delrawn Small’s family. He is also a human rights activist.
— source democracynow.org