Two New York City police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a 32-year-old Bronx man in his kitchen in 2019 acted within the law and will not be punished, the city’s police commissioner said on Friday.
The announcement by the commissioner, Edward A. Caban, was the last in a series of decisions clearing the officers, Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis, of wrongdoing in the killing of the man, Kawaski Trawick.
The officers entered Mr. Trawick’s apartment the night of April 14, 2019, after responding to 911 calls saying that he had been acting erratically and threatening other tenants.
When Mr. Trawick jumped toward them with a knife, the police said, Officer Thompson used his Taser against him before shooting at him four times. The two left Mr. Trawick lying on the floor of his apartment, according to police documents.
Mr. Trawick’s parents, Ellen and Rickie Trawick, condemned the commissioner’s decision, saying in a statement that Mayor Eric Adams and the Police Department “don’t seem to care about protecting New Yorkers from cops who kill.”
They added that “the utter disregard they have for our son’s memory” was “disgusting and shameful.”
The Bronx district attorney, Darcel D. Clark, declined in 2020 to file charges against the officers, citing what she said was an inability to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that Officer Thompson’s “use of deadly physical force was not justified.”
