Retired NYPD Detective Graham speaking at the Press Conf. outside DA Ken Thompson’s office at 350 Jay St. this week for Nicholas Heyward Jr., a 13 year old honor student who was killed by NYPD in 1994 while playing with friends and brightly colored plastic toy guns in the stairwell of the Wycoff houses where he lived. The cop who shot and killed Nicholas Jr., Brian George, recently retired in November with a pension. The witnesses said Nicholas Jr saw George, who asked the boys what they were doing in the stairwell then dropped the gun saying, “Where only Playing, We’re Only Playing”, and George fired hitting Heyward Jr in the stomach. Graham Weatherspoon was explaining to the press and supporters about a “cold” case.

The National Institute of Justice currently defines a cold case as any case whose probative investigative leads have been exhausted. In essence, this means a case that is only a few months old may be defined as being “cold.” A criminal investigation that has not been solved after a considerable time but remains “on the books”; may be reopened when new evidence appears. Nicholas Heyward Sr. had hopes that the new DA Ken Thompson would re open the case that the previous DA, Charles Hynes, covered up, according to Weatherspoon and Heyward Sr.

“That case is still on the books, the case was never closed, a cold case”, said Weatherspoon. “And there’s no statute of limitation which means you can be prosecuted for homicide today or 50 years from now”. Supporter holding sign of Cop Brian George who killed Nicholas Heyward Jr. Mr Weatherspoon is helping Nicholas Heyward Sr not allow the case of his son’s killing become a “cold” case. They have the witnesses the DA Charles Hynes said they didn’t have, the friends Nicholas Jr was playing with that fatal day that are now in their 30’s who are willing to come forward and speak about what they witnessed along with the documents and journaling Heyward Sr did for the last 22 years.

Weatherspoon spoke about when he was with NYPD he worked in a shirt and tie with No bullet proof vest. “We were burying a cop a month and the cops weren’t killing people the way they’re killing the people today”. I asked Mr Weatherspoon if the NYPD quota system has any effect, if any, on what happened to Nicholas Heyward Jr. He replied bringing up Bratton and his Broken Windows policing.

Weatherspoon didn’t think it had a correlation to what happened to Nicholas Jr. Weatherspoon said when he was a cop he had to “catch someone in the act. I wasn’t searching people going through their pockets”. “A radio and a gun does not identify someone as a police officer. A badge does not identify someone as a police officer”, Weatherspoon said. Reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet, Weatherspoon said, “There’s only one thing that identifies someone as a police officer”, taking out his NYPD ID card, “is an ID card, that’s the only thing”. “PEOPLE HAVE BEEN RAPED AND ROBBED BY PEOPLE WITH BADGES AND GUNS AND THEY WEREN’T POLICE OFFICERS”.