Family of Black gay man killed by police demand justice

The mother of a 32-year-old Black gay man who was shot and killed by New York City Police officers joined advocates at a rally near City Hall earlier this week to demand justice for her son, following a report that the officers involved in the shooting would face no punishment.

Ellen Trawick told the crowd on Monday that her son Kawaski, a dancer and personal trainer, came to the city to pursue his dreams. “He wanted to dance,” she said, according to them. Instead, she said, NYPD officers Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis “took his life.”

Related:

A black bisexual man was killed by police in his kitchen because he had a bread knife

Officers opened the door to his apartment and saw him in his kitchen holding a cheap, serrated bread knife and a broom handle. They shot him in the chest four times.

On the night of April 14, 2019, Kawaski Trawick called 911 after locking himself out of his apartment at Hill House, a Bronx low-income housing building which a police dispatcher characterized as “a sensitive location” due to past mental health calls, according to a 2020 ProPublica investigation. Four other 911 calls came in that night about Trawick, who reportedly suffered from mental health issues and drug use, including one from the building’s security guard who reported that he was “harassing” neighbors.

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

After Trawick falsely reported a fire in the building, firefighters arrived and let him into his apartment. Minutes after firefighters left, Thompson and Davis arrived and entered Trawick’s apartment where they found him holding a staff and a bread knife. Trawick demanded to know why the officers had entered his home. They ignored him and ordered him to drop the knife. When he failed to comply, Thompson, who is white and had been with the NYPD for only three years, took out his taser and then his gun, holding one in each hand. Thompson fired the taser and Trawick charged at the officers, still holding the knife. Thompson then fired four gunshots at Trawick, hitting him twice and killing him.

During the course of the 112-second interaction, Davis, who is Black and had been with the NYPD for 16 years, repeatedly told Thompson not to use force.

Monday’s rally follows a report last month that the NYPD’s head of administrative trials would recommend no punishment for Thompson and Davis in the 2019 killing. In June 2021, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) found the officers guilty of misconduct and voted to seek disciplinary action against them. But in a draft ruling obtained by The City, Deputy Commissioner Rosemarie Maldonado blamed the CCRB for not filing misconduct charges before a statute of limitations for doing so was up. A timeline included in the draft decision, however, details how the NYPD delayed turning over key evidence, including taking a year-and-a-half to provide CCRB investigators with bodycam video of Thompson and Davis’s interaction with Kawaski, according to The City.

According to ProPublica’s investigation, Thompson’s bodycam video and footage from a hallway camera show that he and Davis did not follow key elements of the latest NYPD training in how to handle and de-escalate encounters with people in crisis, which both officers had received.

“It wasn’t the CCRB. It was the NYPD. It was them — they held the process up so long,” Ellen Trawick told The City last month. “I really feel like it was something that the NYPD rigged up from the beginning. I felt like they know what they was doing. I’m pretty sure this is nothing that they haven’t done before.”

Last month, Rae Koshetz, a former deputy commissioner of trials, told The City that it is unlikely that Maldonado would alter the draft decision, which itself is only a recommendation for Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who will ultimately decide whether to discipline Thompson and Davis.

At a Monday press conference, Mayor Eric Adams said that Caban would “look into” the NYPD’s delays in the case, Gay City News reported. Adams also said that he was open to meeting with Trawick’s family. However, according to them, the Trawicks hand-delivered a letter to Adams in May and have still not received a response.

“The very least Adams can do is meet with the Trawick family before a decision is made,” Ellen Trawick said on Monday.

Kawaski Trawick’s father, Rickie Trawick, also had harsh words for the mayor, delivered via a prepared statement read by Jawanza James Williams, the director of organizing at the grassroots community organization VOCAL New York, at Monday’s rally.

“Mayor Adams should meet with us because he needs to understand that if Thompson and Davis aren’t fired, then these cops are literally getting away with murder,” Williams read. “They murdered my son, and they should have been fired four years ago.”