A cop who shot and nearly killed a Bronx man in the middle of a mental-health breakdown should be kicked off the force, according to the city’s civilian oversight panel.
The final determination on the recommendation — the most severe that can be issued by the Civilian Complaint Review Board — could ultimately be the call of newly appointed police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Officer Derek Bernard was one of two cops who shot knife-wielding Raul de la Cruz almost immediately after responding to his father’s 311 call for help during the son’s mental-health episode in 2023.
The other officer resigned from the NYPD before the CCRB could issue its report on him, making its potential findings on his actions moot.
But the CCRB recently handed down their most severe recommendation for Bernard: termination.
And while there’s still a long road ahead in the disciplinary process — including a challenge from the NYPD, more CCRB hearings and an administrative trial — before Tisch will make the final call, Cruz and the lawyers representing him in a federal lawsuit against the city and the officers are already hailing the recommendation.
“We cannot tolerate one more death or near death of a New Yorker with a mental disability at the hands of the NYPD,” said Maureen Belluscio, a lawyer for Cruz who works at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
As for Cruz, 44, he said, “I still don’t feel OK.
“But it makes me feel good to be part of this lawsuit because I know it is a step to getting justice.”
Cruz spent months in the hospital after the shooting, which left him in hemorrhagic shock from the immense blood loss. He also had multiple organs damaged — and some removed altogether — thanks to the gunshot wounds to his chest and leg.
In March 2023, Cruz was visiting family in the Bronx when he started to become distressed.
His father dialed 311 seeking help for his son, who he explained to the dispatcher was going through a mental-health crisis and suffered from schizophrenia, according to Cruz’s lawsuit filed a year after the shooting.
His father told the 311 operator to not send police — who made Cruz feel specifically afraid and paranoid — and instead asked for medical professionals.
Three NYPD officers responded to the scene outside of an apartment building, where they found Cruz and his father, who was recorded by police body-worn cameras trying to calm his distressed son.
After the officers shouted in English and the Spanish word for “hands,” Cruz pulled out a kitchen knife.
His father tried one last time to calm his son, but Cruz moved away and was shot seconds later by Bernard and Officer Nicholas Trupia.
The two fired a total of seven times and then handcuffed Cruz as he bled out onto the sidewalk.
Aside from his massive blood loss, Cruz spent four weeks in the intensive care unit and underwent several surgeries, where doctors removed a kidney and his spleen and parts of his pancreas and small and large intestines, according to his federal lawsuit.
“Instead of sending trained health professionals to help Mr. de la Cruz, NYPD patrol officers were dispatched to the scene and arrived minutes later,” the lawsuit reads, which stated that neither officer spoke Spanish and could not communicate with the father or son.
“I was worried something like this could happen,” Cruz’s father told Gothamist just days after the shooting. “That’s why I called 311. … I didn’t go asking for help just for him to get killed.”
Cruz told the outlet this past spring, “I’m not violent. I was not angry. I was scared.”
The incident occurred almost exactly one year before a similar shooting in Queens, where a mentally ill teen, Win Rozario, 19, was shot and killed by officers responding to an emergency call relating to a mental-health episode.
Advocates have long criticized the NYPD’s deployment to situations involving people in mental distress and have called for mental-health professionals to also respond and for better police training.
Police records show Bernard joined the force in 2012 and had completed a four-module training course titled “Responding to people in crisis” in 2019.
The NYPD has asked the CCRB to reconsider the recommendation, which could delay its progress through administrative courts and even result in it being dismissed.
A police spokesperson would only comment that the disciplinary process is ongoing.