Delrawn Small

One day before Alton Sterling was gunned down by Baton Rouge cops and 2 days before Philando Castile was shot dead in Minnesota, 37-year-old Delrawn Small was killed by a NYPD cop.

In the early hours of 4 July 2016, Delrawn—unarmed and returning home after a b-b-q with his girlfriend, step-daughters and newborn son—was shot dead by off-duty cop Wayne Isaacs. Driving erratically in an unmarked car, Isaacs cut off Delrawn’s car. When they both stopped at a light, Delrawn approached Isaacs. Isaacs rolled down his window, shot Delrawn 3 times, got out of his car, walked over, looked down, and then strolled away leaving Delrawn to bleed out in the street.

For nine years Small’s family has fought against powerful forces—the courts, the NYPD, the police “union,” 2 mayors and 7 police commissioners—seeking some semblance of justice. Since 2018, the cop has remained on active duty, and his base pay is doubled what it was 2016.

In 2017, Isaacs was acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges and later cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal NYPD investigation. Since 2018, the case has languished in the hands of the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board, often the last option for the many families seeking some kind of justice for loved ones who have been brutalized or killed by members of the NYPD. At each step, the CCRB investigation has been sabotaged by the police “union,” various courts, police commissioners and also incompetence from the City Law Department which represents the CCRB in oral arguments.

It was not until April 2025 that the CCRB decided to hold a disciplinary trial against Isaacs, the date of which is still undecided. The CCRB has said the Isaac case is the longest running disciplinary case the board has been involved in in its 32 years of existence. A March 27 statement released by Victor Dempsey and Victoria Davis, Delrawn’s brother and sister, read: “There is also an inherent conflict of interest as the Law Department represents the NYPD and the Adams administration….So here we are, continuing to fight to hold the cop that murdered our brother accountable against a system that is designed to protect abusive officers at every turn.”

As Frederick Douglass said, July 4th is a “day that reveals to him [the slave] more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.” Reviving the struggle against police atrocities with the broadest possible forces is an elementary act of self-defense for black people. Open the police archives!