NYPD cop who shot man during road rage incident will likely face charges

An off-duty NYPD cop who was caught on video waiting just one second before shooting a black man dead will likely face charges, law enforcement sources have revealed.

Delrawn Small, 37, was killed after he was shot in the head and chest by officer Wayne Issacs on July 4 following a near-miss car accident in Brooklyn. 

Witnesses had previously claimed that Small went over to Issac's window and 'wailed on his face' before the officer pulled out his service weapon and shot him. 

But footage obtained by the New York Post shows Small climbing out of his vehicle and walking toward 37-year-old Isaacs, who is sitting in his car.

A split second after bending down to look in the window, Small stumbles backward, staggering across the road before collapsing between two parked vehicles.

'The video is pretty damning,' a source close to the investigation told the New York Post. 

One police official said Issacs, who was returning home from a shift and was not in uniform, will likely face a manslaughter charge and that a grand jury could be convened as early as next week.

'You'll see some sort of charges filed,' the official said. 'You have a person who is unarmed and they're going to say the level of force used, versus forced used against him, does not add up.' 

'When you use deadly force, there has to be some sort of grave danger to him. He can't just say, "I got punched so I shot him"'. 

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is now investigating the footage to see whether deadly force was justified. 

'We will follow the facts and evidence - including this video evidence - wherever they lead,' Schneiderman said on Friday.   

Eric Soufer, a spokesman for Schneiderman's office, told the Associated Press that prosecutors have already secured a search warrant for Issacs' vehicle.  

Roger Wareham, lawyer for the Small family, said the footage 'clearly demonstrates the cop lied', adding that Isaacs looks down at Small's body 'as if he had just stepped on a roach.'

Wareham told the New York Daily News: 'If the cop's story is obviously false, why haven't they arrested him?'

The Rev. Al Sharpton has also called on Schneiderman to go 'full steam ahead' and prosecute Issacs. 

'This video clearly raises questions on the story the officer stated,' Sharpton told the New York Daily News. 

'This is absolutely the opposite of what the policeman said.' 

The footage directly contradicts an earlier account from the owner Touch of Glass, who said his surveillance cameras had captured a very different encounter between Issacs and Small. 

The business owner told the New York Post: 'The video shows the guy coming out of his f***ing car, running up to [the cop's] car, going in the driver's side window and just punching the s*** of this poor cop. Then all of a sudden you see sparks.'

He added that Small 'was wailing on [Isaacs'] face, like pow, pow! He was looking to knock this guy out, punching and punching. Maybe four punches. It was big haymakers.' 

Police had put forward a similar account of events, though chief Bill Bratton had urged caution, saying it was too early to tell whether the shooting was justified.

However, construction worker Lloyd Banks, 43, told the New York Daily News: 'He just shot him right there on the street. Delrawn was unarmed. His wife and kids were still in the car. They saw everything.'

Small was pronounced dead at the scene but his body remained on the street covered in a plastic sheet for around four hours after the shooting.

His girlfriend Zaquanna Albert, 35, and their three children were inside Small's car at the time of the shooting. 

Albert can be seen in the video pulling his car across the street before running to his side. 

Police say Albert told investigators that Small became enraged after he thought the officer cut him off, then followed the officer's car to the stoplight despite her pleas to calm down and let it go.