{"id":218225,"date":"2026-05-03T12:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218225\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T12:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:51:07","slug":"bronx-man-shot-by-police-sues-city-and-nypd-seeks-damages-and-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218225\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronx man shot by police sues city and NYPD, seeks damages and reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Bronx man who was shot<\/a> by NYPD officers responding to a 311 call in 2023 filed a new lawsuit<\/a> against the department and the city last week, and is seeking damages for his injuries as well as an injunction to prohibit New York City from \u201ccontinuing to enforce its current police-run mental health crisis response policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raul de la Cruz experienced a schizophrenic episode while visiting his family in March 2023, and believed he was being persecuted by the government, according to court documents. His father called 311 for help, and two NYPD patrol officers were dispatched to the scene, according to the suit. Neither spoke Spanish, de la Cruz\u2019s primary language, according to court documents, which go on to state that the officers, Derek Bernard and Nicholas Trupia, didn\u2019t formulate a plan or consider appropriate tactics to safely manage and de-escalate the situation. When de la Cruz started walking toward the officers while holding a knife, he was shot seven times, according to the suit. The documents say he suffered physical and psychological injuries and still has a bullet lodged in his back.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed on April 29, a month after a federal judge dismissed de la Cruz\u2019s previous case against the city. De la Cruz appealed that case to the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals this week. This new lawsuit filed with the state, his lawyer Jody Yetzer said, makes the same arguments as the federal case but had to be refiled because the federal judge did not want to rule on certain claims related to state laws. It also comes as New York City\u2019s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has expressed support for reforming the NYPD and how the city responds to mental health emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cA person experiencing a mental health episode does not always have to be served first or exclusively by a police officer. It is important for us to have all of the options available,\u201d Mamdani said<\/a> at a news conference in February after the police shooting of Jabez Chakraborty, a Queens man who was experiencing a mental health episode.<\/p>\n

Yetzer expressed hope that the Mamdani administration would be more sympathetic and open to settling de la Cruz\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re cautiously optimistic,\u201d Yetzer said by phone on Saturday. \u201cWe have a shared goal, given Mayor Mamdani\u2019s support for non-police responses to mental health emergencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his campaign, Mamdani ran on promises to create a city agency that would, among other things, allow 911 operators to divert more emergency calls usually handled by police to social workers and other non-law enforcement responders. In March, Mamdani signed an executive order<\/a> to create a scaled-down Office of Community Safety and appoint a deputy mayor to lead it.<\/p>\n

Mamdani has singled out<\/a> a de Blasio-era program known as B-HEARD \u2013 or the Behavioral Health Emergency Response Division, which sends mental health professionals and EMTs to certain mental health emergencies \u2013 as a central component of the brand new office.<\/p>\n

De la Cruz\u2019s suit calls the city\u2019s efforts to improve mental health crisis response training \u201cwoefully inadequate and ineffective\u201d and demands that the city create new programs that enable healthcare professionals to respond to mental health crises.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile B-HEARD is a recognition of the need for reform, its inadequacy means that police officers continue to be dispatched unnecessarily in far too many situations, thereby defeating its stated purpose of reducing police response to individuals in the City who are undergoing a mental health crisis,\u201d the suit states. Court documents add that B-HEARD was not available in the Bronx precinct where de la Cruz\u2019s family called for help.<\/p>\n

Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesperson for the city\u2019s law department, said the city\u2019s counsel will review these pending matters and did not comment on the allegations.<\/p>\n

According to data from the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates police misconduct, Trupia had no record of being trained in responding to mental health crises. Bernard and a third officer who responded, Elyjah Bennett, had received four modules of training on \u201cresponding to people in crisis\u201d in 2019. In 2024, about a year after their encounter with de la Cruz, the two officers received more training on \u201cengaging individuals in a mental health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to de la Cruz\u2019s shooting, the CCRB found<\/a> in 2024 that Bernard used unauthorized force and abused his authority and recommended that he be fired. But the police commissioner at the time rejected the board\u2019s recommendation, news outlet The City reported<\/a>. Charges of excessive force were also substantiated against Bennett, according to the CCRB. Trupia, meanwhile, resigned before the investigation was complete, according to the CCRB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Bronx man who was shot by NYPD officers responding to a 311 call in 2023 filed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-218225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}