NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- The father of Brian Mulkeen, a police officer who was gunned down in a friendly fire incident, is suing the NYPD for his son’s death.
The lawsuit, filed in Bronx Supreme Court, alleges the officers’ “actions were of such a wanton, willful, and reckless nature as to evince a callous disregard for human life and the safety and welfare of others.” The New York Daily News was first to report on the lawsuit.
Mulkeen, 33, was patrolling the Edenwald Houses in the Bronx wearing plainclothes on Sept. 29, 2019 around 12:30 a.m. when a man he was questioning, 27-year-old Antonio Williams, fled.
Mulkeen and his partner chased Williams, before tackling him and wrestling with him on the ground.
Four plainclothes officers called for backup and Mulkeen’s partner fired 15 shots at Mulkeen and Williams, killing them both.
The police later found a gun on Williams, but no shots had been fired and body cameras do not show him drawing his weapon.
Mulkeen yelled "He's reaching for it!" before the other officers opened fire.
Mulkeen’s father, Brian Mulkeen Sr., is accusing his son’s fellow officers of “negligence, carelessness and recklessness.”
Williams’ family also sued the NYPD in November of 2020 for wrongful death through negligence, unconstitutional profiling, assault and battery, and denial of medical care.
Surveillance footage released by the family’s lawyers shows police left Williams handcuffed on the ground for more than five minutes after being shot before he received any medical care.
David Rankin, one of the lawyers for the Williams family, said the Mulkeen lawsuit emphasizes the severity of the Williams shooting.
“It shows how reckless and beyond the pale the officers were on that evening," said Rankin. "I mean there’s two people who died based on an illegal stop, based on reckless conduct.”
The NYPD’s internal investigation found the officers did not violate department use-of-force guidelines when they opened fire on Mulkeen and Williams.
A Tweet from then-chief of police Terrence Monahan blamed Williams for the shooting despite the only shots fired coming from NYPD officers. "One year ago, his life was taken due to the actions of a convicted felon armed with a gun," Monahan wrote.
Darcel Clarke, the Bronx District Attorney at the time of the shooting, declined to prosecute the officers, though he noted the killings raised concerns about the NYPD’s use of force and training, NBC New York reported.
The CCRB, an independent agency tasked with investigating NYPD misconduct, opened an investigation into the shooting in September of 2021.
All of the officers involved were a part of a controversial plainclothes anti-crime unit that was a notorious hallmark of the stop-and-frisk era.
The unit was disbanded in 2020 among calls for police reform during the nationwide Georg Floyd protests.
Mayor Eric Adams has vowed to revive the unit.
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