Eli Feliz was 6 months old when his father, Allan Feliz, was shot and killed by an NYPD officer during a 2019 traffic stop in the Bronx.<\/p>\n
His mother, Julie Aquino, said her boy looks more and more like his father as he grows.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I tell him this, he says, \u2018Don’t say that, the police are going to come and kill me, like they killed my dad,\u2019\u201d Aquino said Thursday.<\/p>\n
She said she wants to reassure her son that he\u2019ll be safe, but can\u2019t. That\u2019s because the officer who killed 31-year-old Allan Feliz has not been fired and is still working in the Bronx.<\/p>\n
Aquino is one member of Allan Feliz\u2019s family who has filed a lawsuit against the NYPD and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch over her decision not to fire the officer, Lt. Jonathan Rivera, after the shooting.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, their attorneys argued in court that the case should move forward.<\/p>\n
A key dispute between them and the city’s attorneys is whether Aquino and other family members were actually harmed by Tisch\u2019s decision not to fire Rivera.<\/p>\n
Family members, like Aquino, said Tisch\u2019s decision has caused them anguish and fear. An attorney for the city argued that the decision caused them no harm and it was the killing itself that hurt them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Feliz family doesn\u2019t have standing in this case, it truly just means that the police commissioner can do whatever she wants in terms of her decisions, and the only individuals who would be able to challenge it would be officers within the force,\u201d attorney Samah Sisay, who represents members of the family, said outside court Thursday.<\/p>\n
The shooting<\/p>\n
Three NYPD officers, including Rivera, stopped Allan Feliz on Oct. 17, 2019, as he was driving a Volkswagen Atlas near the corner of 211th Street and Bainbridge Avenue in Norwood.<\/p>\n
When officers asked for his identification, Allan Feliz gave them his brother\u2019s driver\u2019s license. One of the officers ran the license and found Allan Feliz\u2019s brother had several open warrants. The officers asked him to step out of the car.<\/p>\n
Allan Feliz initially stepped out of the vehicle, but then climbed back into the driver\u2019s seat, according to the lawsuit. The officers then began to struggle with him and pull him in different directions, the suit says.<\/p>\n
As the officers pulled at Allan Feliz, Rivera got into the car from the passenger\u2019s side and shocked, punched and hit Allan Feliz with a Taser, according to the lawsuit. Rivera eventually pulled his handgun and shot Allan Feliz once in the chest, killing him.<\/p>\n
Rivera later testified that he opened fire at Allan Feliz because he feared he could kill another officer at the scene by running them over.<\/p>\n
Investigations<\/p>\n
The shooting was the subject of several investigations, including one by the state attorney general\u2019s office. The office declined to pursue criminal charges against Rivera after finding his use of deadly force was justified because he thought Allan Feliz could kill another officer with the car.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an NYPD watchdog, conducted its own investigation and determined Rivera used excessive force during the altercation. The board\u2019s findings led to an administrative trial over the allegation.<\/p>\n
At Rivera\u2019s NYPD trial in 2024, Deputy Commissioner Rosemarie Maldonado concluded Rivera should be fired for the shooting after hearing testimony from Rivera and other evidence presented in the case. But under NYPD guidelines, the police commissioner can overturn the departmental judge and decide what discipline should be meted out after departmental trials.<\/p>\n
In July, Tisch rejected Maldonado\u2019s conclusion and wrote in a decision that Rivera should not be fired for the fatal shooting.<\/p>\n
In her decision, Tisch cited what she described as the exhaustive review completed by the attorney general that concluded the officer would not seek to criminally charge Rivera. The AG\u2019s report stated that evidence in the case \u201cstrongly suggests\u201d Rivera was justified in shooting Feliz because they found it credible that he did so to protect the life of another officer, Tisch noted in her decision.<\/p>\n
Legal arguments<\/p>\n
The lawsuit asks a judge to overturn Tisch\u2019s decision and to order that Rivera be fired.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleges Tisch improperly relied on the findings of the AG\u2019s report, which was published five years before Tisch\u2019s decision. The suit alleges she relied on the AG\u2019s findings, while ignoring evidence collected after it was published during the CCRB investigation and at the administrative trial.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit notes the AG\u2019s investigation found Rivera credible, but that it reached that conclusion \u201cbased on a more limited record\u201d than the one that had been fleshed out by the time of his departmental trial.<\/p>\n
After his trial, Maldonado said she found evidence that Rivera lacked credibility, according to the lawsuit. His demeanor and tone during the hearings also helped her reach that conclusion, the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n
The city has asked the judge to dismiss the suit for several reasons, including arguing that Tisch properly applied the law in her decision and explained the reasoning behind it in her written decision.<\/p>\n
City lawyers also argue the decision has not actually harmed the family members. In court Thursday, city attorney Robyn Rothman said the harm to the family stems “from the 2019 death of Feliz,\u201d not Tisch’s decision not to fire Rivera.<\/p>\n
The Feliz family contends the decision not to fire Rivera has harmed them and they\u2019ve detailed how it has in affidavits filed in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Outside of court on Thursday, Aquino said she\u2019s contemplating leaving the city because of Tisch\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born and raised in New York City. But now I can’t imagine staying in this place that caused my family so much harm,\u201d she said. \u201cI don’t want to keep my son in this city where his father grew up, where his father was killed, and where his father has been denied justice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eli Feliz was 6 months old when his father, Allan Feliz, was shot and killed by an NYPD…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-231895","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\/231895","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=231895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}