Alas, video has confirmed the truth once again.
An off-duty New York City police officer waited about one second before shooting and killing a driver in what is being termed a “road rage” incident on Monday, reports the New York Post.
The outlet obtained exclusive video of the confrontation on Friday, showing Officer Wayne Isaacs firing two shots through his unmarked police car window at Delrawn Small, who collapsed and died in the street.
This version of events is markedly different from how the story was first reported, when initial “sources,” including the owner of a nearby building, told the paper that Small was “punching the s—t” out of Isaacs.
The Post reported that Isaacs was struck in the face and head numerous times, and that the cop, fearing for his life, “pulled out his weapon and fired three times, striking Dempsey at least once in the chest.”
There was no physical altercation.
The new footage, captured at a Brooklyn, N.Y., intersection just after midnight on July 4, shows Small, 37, crossing two lanes of traffic to reach Isaacs’ car. Reports the Post:
[Small] barely has time to look the cop in the eye or even utter a word before Isaacs opens fire, causing him to stagger backward.
He stumbles to the ground, gets up for a moment—and then collapses again for good.
Isaacs, meanwhile, lurches his car forward a few feet before slamming on the brakes and getting out. He appears to tuck the gun into his waistband as he walks over toward Small.
Isaacs looks in the direction of the dying man, pausing for a few moments near his body, before returning to his vehicle.
He is then seen pacing around and talking on the phone. Sources have said he called 911.
Small’s girlfriend Zaquanna Albert, 35, then pulls the man’s car across the street before frantically running toward the scene.
That’s when the footage cuts off.
The video released on Friday prompted the family’s lawyer to call the shooting a “cold-blooded murder.”
“From what it shows, there was no threat to the cop. Deadly force was not justified,” lawyer Roger Wareham said. “Delrawn looks in, then he’s falling down, in an instant.”
He continues, “After he shoots him, and after Delrawn falls to the ground, the cop just casually gets out of his car. There’s no urgency, no attitude like, ‘I need to get help for this person.’”
The incident began when Small allegedly followed the cop in his unmarked car for several blocks before getting out at the traffic light to confront him for cutting him off. Isaacs, reportedly on his way home after a shift in the 79th Precinct in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, used his service weapon to shoot Small in the head and chest. Isaacs has been put on administrative duty, reports the Post.
Small’s brother, Victor Dempsey, said the video shows his kin was “point-blank murdered.”
“Now that I saw that video, I’m outraged,” he said at a press conference Friday night at the scene of Small’s death. “It’s time for us to get justice on it. Everything they told us from the very beginning is a lie.”
The NYPD and the state attorney general’s office are investigating the shooting, which the victim’s family said is a clear case of excessive force. New York City's Police Department declined to comment.
Read more at the New York Post.