For more than 20 years, Nicholas Heyward, Sr. has been fighting for some semblance of Justice. On September 27, 1994 his 13-year-old son, Nicholas Heyward, Jr., was playing with friends in the stairwell of his own home when he was shot dead by NYPD Police Officer Brian George. The exact details of the encounter remain unconfirmed 23 years later as public statements by then-Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, a deposition from George, reports by the NYPD and statements by Nicholas’s friends who witnessed the shooting, each describe the killing in different ways. No one has been held responsible.

On Thursday February 23, Mr. Heyward, and his supporters, filed a complaint with New York City’s Department of Investigation, alleging corruption through three separate administrations of the Brooklyn District Attorney. Charles Hynes, the District Attorney in 1994, down-played and covered up the incident – never presenting the case to a grand jury and blaming the toy gun Nicholas was playing with for his murder; his successors continued the cover-up, Mr. Heyward says.

Kenneth Thompson, who was elected in 2013 after a bruising campaign during which he accused Charles Hynes of corruption (an allegation backed-up by the DOI in a separate report), re-opened the investigation into Nicholas’s killing at the urging of the family, a public petition and the New York City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus. Thompson said he did not have enough evidence, 23 years after the fact, to charge George with murder, but despite assurances to the family, he never publicly re-investigated the work Hynes’s staff had done on the initial investigation. Instead, he relied on evidence from that same disputed investigation to arrive at the decision not to pursue a murder charge against now-retired PO George.

Under acting leader Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn DA's Office then denied Mr. Heyward a copy of its final report from the 2016 investigation and forced him make a Freedom of Information request to get information about the examination into his son’s murder. Key passages in the report he received were heavily redacted.

Photo @AshAgony The report

“Something has to be done, we cannot allow this,” Mr. Heyward said Thursday outside of the Department of Investigation’s 80 Maiden Lane headquarters in Manhattan.

Mr. Heyward and his attorneys delivered a letter alleging that Thompson refused to properly re-investigate the original investigation under Charles Hynes because the office was already taking heat for prosecuting a police officer – Peter Liang – and because the lead investigators in 1994, such as current Bureau Chief Joe Alexis, continue to work at the Brooklyn DA’s office. Any wrongdoing found by a new investigation would lead back to Alexis and others, Mr. Heyward said. Current NYPD Counter-terrorism Chief John Miller was the NYPD spokesperson at the time of Nicholas’s killing.

“The initial investigation was at best poorly done, and at worst, a cover-up,” the letter said. “During the course of this new investigation, members of the District Attorney’s office said things to me that were very concerning. For example, I was told that due to the Peter Liang case, my son’s case was ‘too hot’ for the District Attorney to look into at that time. I was also told that the investigation into my son’s murder would not continue if I did not remove myself as a supporter of the Akai Gurley family and stop rallying outside their offices,” the letter said.

“While I seek justice for my son’s case specifically, the Brooklyn DA’s choice to not investigate wrongdoing, cover-ups, and errors in District Attorney Charles Hynes’s initial investigation into the death of Nicholas Heyward, Jr., all but ensures that similar tragedies and injustices will re-occur in the future. In fact the death of Akai Gurley, in very similar circumstances, is a direct result of the Hynes Administration’s failure to require reforms following Nicholas Heyward Jr.’s death,” the letter continued.

The Department of Investigation has the authority, among other responsibilities, to investigate and prosecute cases of misconduct, corruption and unethical behavior by elected officials in New York City.

Following a short press conference, Mr. Heyward and his attorneys met with investigators at the DOI to discuss the complaint. And a father’s struggle for Justice continues.