Calls for justice over the killing of unarmed Black man Delrawn Small by off-duty cop Wayne Isaacs date back to the Obama administration. They still continue as the NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado, who ostensibly serves the department’s administrative judge, recommended dismissing fireable disciplinary charges against the officer earlier this month. Advocates and elected officials now want police commissioner Jessica Tisch, the final decisionmaker, to greenlight the proceeding anyway.
“In this moment, I don’t even think that we’ve been allowed to have real feelings about things — even grief — because [of] this whole fight for justice,” Small’s sister Victoria Davis said over the phone. “The celebrating of his life [hasn’t] come yet … the only time we were able to do that was when the street was named after him. Other than that, this delays a human response [like] grieving because we’re so focused on systemic things instead of [the] human response to death.”
Isaacs killed Small on July 4, 2016 during a road confrontation between the two men in East New York, Brooklyn. The incident sparked the first-ever special prosecution for a police-involved shooting by the State Attorney General’s Special Investigations and Prosecutions Unit through an executive order by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. A grand jury indicted Isaacs, who maintained he was scared for his life and practiced self-defense. He was ultimately acquitted on murder charges in 2017 and returned to active duty a year later.
In 2022, then–NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell refused to block a Civilian Complaint Review Board investigation, as requested by Isaacs. A battle over whether the police watchdog agency could access his criminal trial records continued for more than three years. After a successful appeal in March 2025, the records were resealed because of his acquittal.
Originally, the NYPD slated the trial for this week, although the dates will certainly be rescheduled if Tisch does not dismiss the charges and continues the proceedings. Isaacs’ argument now centers against the CCRB’s jurisdiction — which only covers police misconduct — given he was off-duty.
But many argue the reasoning contradicts the officer’s previous claims, including 33 elected officials who penned a letter to Tisch, Mayor Eric Adams, and mayoral-elect Zohran Mamdani against Maldonado’s “erroneous recommendation” and for the department to move forward with a disciplinary trial. Among them were Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and NYC Comptroller Brad Lander.
“Isaacs and his attorneys cannot both claim he was acting as an NYPD officer to defend him from liability and secure indemnification in federal court, and now claim he was not acting as an officer to evade discipline,” they wrote. “Unfortunately, DCT Maldonado was fooled by these antics. We urge you not to be.”
They point to a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Isaacs, who successfully dragged the city into the case through his own litigation by claiming he acted as an officer and ultimately led to taxpayer money covering a settlement on his behalf.
“Isaacs argues that he is entitled to indemnification because his actions on July 4, 2016, were ‘within the performance of his duties and within the scope of his employment as [a] New York City Police Officer,’ and he ‘did not violate any of the rules and regulations’ of the Police Department,” read the opinion. He did not identify himself as a police officer during the dispute and discharged his personal firearm rather than a service weapon.
“I’ve met the family on more than one occasion,” said Speaker Adams to the AmNews. “And it is my hope that the commissioner does the right thing by the family and that the family of Delrawn finally get justice for this horrific murder that [took] place. This man should still be alive to enjoy his family and his child.”
Councilmember Christopher Marte also signed on and says the letter stands for accountability and a spotlight for “something that should have been resolved years ago.”
“We’re trying to make sure that he is no longer on the force,” said Marte in a Zoom call. “That it sets an example to future officers in that similar situation not [to] pull out a gun and shoot someone that’s innocent. How can I talk to my communities to say that they’re going to be safe and that they should call 911 — if they see something happening and that they’re going to be safe under any circumstance as police officers arriving to that scene — if they look at this one case and say, why [hasn’t] this individual received justice, and why hasn’t, more importantly, his family, received justice?”
Marte boasts “full confidence” in the police accountability policy platform from incoming Mayor Mamdani, who announced retaining Tisch this week, but remains concerned about the Wayne proceeding getting pushed “under the rug” during the lame-duck transition period. An NYPD spokesperson simply responded to the matter with “the disciplinary process remains ongoing.”
The Wayne case provides another police accountability test for Tisch who increased discipline for police misconduct investigated by the CCRB. Ironically, she drew ire from police accountability advocates earlier this year for ignoring and overriding another Maldonado recommendation on an officer-involved shooting: to fire Lt. Jonathan Rivera for killing Allan Feliz in 2019.
Small’s 2016 death came just days after two other high-profile police-involved killings of Black men, Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota. Davis and Small’s other siblings stepped up as their brother’s spokespeople since their mother was deceased. The community and other organizers rallied around them.
“I felt like it was magic,” said Davis. “They just showed up. This tragedy happened and when I heard it I [didn’t] know what to do. And then when I showed up, all these people were there … I always thought that it would be cool if people did things for other people and showed up in community for other people. I just didn’t know what that actually looked like [and] how it happened. And then we found out.”