In late 2019, billionaire heiress Jessica Tisch left the NYPD. She would settle for a proposal to go up the de Blasio administration’s Division of Info Expertise and Telecommunications the place she would oversee the town’s IT infrastructure. A rising star in metropolis authorities, Tisch beforehand led efforts to modernize the NYPD along with her tech-forward method.
In the meantime, the household of Allan Feliz mourned. The Washington Heights man couldn’t wait to take his son trick-or-treating for the primary time just some weeks earlier. He deliberate on dressing the new child as Tigger from the world of Winnie-the-Pooh. A tiny striped costume got here by way of the mail and match completely.
Nonetheless, midway to Halloween in October, Feliz encountered Sgt. Jonathan Rivera throughout a Bronx site visitors cease. It ended with the officer fatally capturing him. He was 31 years previous.
Practically six years later, Tisch discovered herself again within the NYPD, making the last word choice to not hearth Rivera for killing Feliz. On August 15, the now-police commissioner launched a memo confirming she wouldn’t discover the officer responsible of first-degree assault and second-degree menacing, which might have led to termination.
For greater than half a decade, Allan Feliz’s household sought to take away Rivera from the NYPD. His youthful brother Samy joined the Justice Committee, a membership group fashioned by two former members of the Younger Lords, a Nineteen Sixties activist group advocating for households killed by police violence. He remained a standard sight exterior of One Police Plaza, main rallies for Allan.
Early on, the Workplace of the New York State Lawyer Normal (OAG) declined to criminally prosecute Rivera after a yearlong investigation. “Though the OAG finds no legal culpability on this tragic matter, we do have severe considerations concerning the NYPD’s dealing with of the incident,” wrote AG Letitia James. Then, the NYPD Drive Investigation Division (FID), which seems to be into use of pressure, carried out a two-year probe on the incident.
Rivera maintained he feared for his and his companion’s life in the course of the encounter, saying he believed Feliz was making an attempt to drive off and would instantly endanger their lives. The cease stemmed from an alleged seatbelt violation (though Feliz was proven strapped in, primarily based on body-worn digicam footage) however escalated after open warrants for low-level offenses like spitting and littering confirmed up after operating the motive force’s license he offered and led to a pat-down request turned bodily battle behind the wheel.
Whereas the OAG declined to press fees, the findings allege Rivera “brandished his firearm and threatened to shoot Mr. Feliz earlier than lethal pressure was justified” when the officers tried to take away him from the Volkswagen. However the query stays: Was lethal pressure justified in any respect?
The earlier FID investigation delayed the Civilian Grievance Overview Board (CCRB) — the town’s unbiased NYPD oversight company — from legally pursuing many disciplinary actions attributable to an 18-month statute of limitations, which even Tisch referred to as “fallacious.” A seven-and-a-half-month extension because of the COVID-19 pandemic, permitting such fees to run out on December 2, 2021. The FID handed its file over to the CCRB on December 8, 2021.
In Could 2023, the police watchdog finally substantiated misconduct fees in opposition to Rivera however wouldn’t search self-discipline in opposition to his companions. If discovered responsible of the highest cost, he could be fired primarily based on the division handbook.
The NYPD, nonetheless, tried to take the prosecution out of the CCRB’s fingers and deal with the proceedings internally. Then-police commissioner Edward Caban famously buried disciplinary circumstances utilizing an not easily seen authority generally known as retention, in line with ProPublica.
Thirty-nine elected officers penned a September 2023 letter to Mayor Eric Adams and Caban, demanding the CCRB transfer ahead with prosecuting Rivera. Signees included Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and a comparatively unknown Queens Assemblymember on the time named Zohran Mamdani.
“Lt. Rivera has an in depth historical past of abusing his authority as a police officer and committing misconduct and has already value the Metropolis $195,000 in civil swimsuit settlements in circumstances separate from Mr. Feliz’s, but his annual wage has elevated by roughly $60k since 2019,” they wrote in 2023. “Within the curiosity of public security and police accountability, Lt. Rivera should reply to CCRB’s substantiated fees with none delay or interference.”
Final November, Rivera — now an NYPD lieutenant — lastly confronted a disciplinary trial for his CCRB fees over Feliz’s dying. A number of days after the proceedings began, Jessica Tisch returned to the NYPD, this time as commissioner.
Commissioner Tisch declines to fireplace NYPD officer who killed Allan Feliz, regardless of inner ruling and household pleas for justice.
An almost unprecedented ruling
Caban resigned in September 2024 after feds seized his telephone in a corruption probe. Weeks later, the FBI searched his interim alternative Thomas Donlon’s home over a non-NYPD matter. Tisch’s following appointment signaled a departure from controversy.
Whereas the Rivera disciplinary case performed out and the NYPD handled a revolving door of commissioners, Tisch was busy constructing a reputation for herself. In 2022, she moved over to go the Division of Sanitation and helped architect containerization efforts to get trash off New York Metropolis streets and into sealed bins.
She cleaned home nearly instantly as NYPD commissioner and notably pushed out Jeffrey Maddrey, a outstanding police chief who weathered important disciplinary efforts from Caban’s predecessor, Keechant Sewell. Tisch additionally started monitoring correct avenue cease compliance among the many rank-and-file and promised to carry commanding officers accountable for their precincts’ efficiency.
This previous February, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado, who ostensibly serves as the executive choose for the division’s inner disciplinary trials, dominated Rivera responsible of first-degree assault. In the course of the proceedings, she appeared unmoved by his claims of a life-or-death response. The offense, like most severe felonies dedicated behind a badge, is punished by termination beneath the division’s disciplinary pointers.
The choice appeared monumental. Only one different officer was dominated responsible for a fireable offense stemming from a CCRB prosecution: Daniel Pantaleo, for the killing of Eric Garner. After such a ruling, the police commissioner makes the ultimate name; 17 days after Maldonado discovered Pantaleo responsible, then-NYPD commissioner James O’Neill agreed to his termination.
However Tisch didn’t attain such a speedy choice. All through winter and spring, the household of Allan Feliz didn’t hear again about whether or not Rivera would lose his job. On Mom’s Day, Feliz’s mother Mery Verdeja and long-time companion Julie Aquino penned a letter to Tisch urging her to verify the firing. A number of different moms of police killing victims signed the letter, together with Kadiatou Diallo, whose son Amadou was killed by NYPD plainclothes officers in 1999.
On Father’s Day, Feliz’s stepdaughter Kilsi despatched the same letter to Tisch. “To me, he’s my dad in each manner that issues,” she wrote. “I used to be solely 15 when Allan was killed. I’ll always remember the second I discovered. I skilled panic assaults then, and I nonetheless do now. I bear in mind the heartbreak and horror I felt the primary time I noticed the video of what the NYPD did to Allan. It made me bodily sick. I had sleepless nights, fixed nervousness, and a deep unhappiness that also lives in me.”
Tisch overturns the choice
As New Yorkers eagerly awaited for the approaching lengthy Independence Day weekend final month, Tisch made her preliminary choice to search out Rivera not responsible on the afternoon of July 3. The household of Allan Feliz was not knowledgeable till a CCRB contact advised them the information.
Police unions, together with the one representing Rivera, lauded the transfer. “In the present day’s choice by PC Tisch to clear Lt. Jon Rivera sends a transparent and decisive message to members of the NYPD,” tweeted the NYPD Lieutenants Benevolent Affiliation on X. “Our Commissioner will again officers appearing in good religion. We commend her for doing what she believes is true, regardless of the political dangers.”
“This is a vital choice that acknowledges the tough choice, split-decision selection that NYPD members should make in life-or-death conditions,” added NYC Police Benevolent Affiliation president Patrick Hendry, who represents most NYPD officers.
In the meantime, Public Advocate Williams lambasted Tisch’s rationalization. A lot of Tisch’s memo pointed to the Lawyer Normal’s report years in the past. Nonetheless, the usual is way greater in legal circumstances than for inner disciplinary proceedings. “It is best to have been the usual of the executive judges who mentioned that the actions of this officer at minimal means he must be fired,” mentioned Williams throughout a July rally.
Regardless of efforts from advocates, electeds, and the CCRB to vary her thoughts, Tisch finalized her verdict on Aug. 15. Lt. Rivera will maintain his job, for now (he faces one other substantiated misconduct allegation).
“We knew it was an uphill battle, one thing that will be robust — to ask the police commissioner to vary their choice, nevertheless it was one thing that was nonetheless attainable, for the reason that closing choice had not been made,” mentioned Samy Feliz by telephone. “However now, this closing choice being precisely the identical simply continues to indicate us the sham of the method that we needed to undergo with the disciplinary trial.”
Regardless of his disappointment, he stays eager on persevering with his Justice Committee advocacy. “It’s not going to stir us away from the battle,” he mentioned. “It’s going to deliver us all nearer collectively, and we’re going to proceed to battle, and I’ll nonetheless stand with households which are starting this course of or [are] far in-between this course of.”
