The family and supporters of Allan Feliz have filed a lawsuit against NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch Wednesday night over her decision this summer not to discipline Lieutenant Jonathan Rivera, who shot Feliz to death in his car in the Bronx in 2019.
Tisch's decision to let Rivera—who is still on active duty and has since been promoted to Lieutenant—skate without consequences for the killing made headlines in July in part because her determination overturned the recommendation of her own department. NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado, who had presided over Rivera's disciplinary trial, which included copious testimony by Rivera himself, determined that Rivera's testimony was simply not credible. Rivera made "self-serving statements fabricated to minimize his culpability" Maldonado concluded. His story was a "carefully constructed departure from the truth" that "could not be reconciled with the totality of circumstances and fell apart under the weight of the credible evidence." Maldonado ruled that Rivera should be fired.
But Maldonado is not the final word on police discipline. Even in matters where civilian investigators have found misconduct and she has endorsed that finding, it is the police commissioner who makes the department's final decision on disciplinary matters.
The Feliz family's lawsuit is an Article 78 petition—effectively asking a judge to reverse Tisch's decision on the grounds that it is arbitrary and capricious.
"Failing to consider five years of new evidence, including the hearing officer’s findings, is textbook arbitrary and capricious agency action," the Feliz family argues in one of its filings. "This was illegal."