New York City police officers claimed they were trying to “avoid the collision” when an unmarked NYPD patrol car swerved from a middle lane into a bicycle lane in 2023, crashing head-on with a Black man on a scooter sending him reeling into the air and headfirst into the windshield, leaving him unconscious on the street.
But surveillance video proved the cops to be liars.
On Wednesday, the 40-year-old victim, Delonny Davis, filed a lawsuit in federal court against the NYPD, accusing the officers of excessive force, malicious prosecution, denial of a fair trial, failure to intervene an negligence.
The lawsuit states that the cops who struck Davis were part of the department’s “Community Response Team” which is made up of dirty cops, described in the claim as a “secretive unit of plainclothes officers whose history of misconduct has been well-documented.”
The lawsuit also accuses the NYPD of implementing a policy encouraging officers to use their patrol cars as weapons, even for low-level traffic infractions.
In Davis’ case, he was riding the scooter on a public street to a store to get his cellphone repaired when he noticed he was being followed by a car that turned out to be an unmarked police car even though he did not know that at the time.
He drove a short distance past the store before turning around and driving back to the store in the bicycle lane.
Meanwhile, the unmarked patrol car that had been following him driven by NYPD Officer Nikolaos Liandrakis spotted Davis in the bicycle lane and swerved his car into its path, striking it head on.
Listed as defendants are Liandrakis, Shamari Roberts, Pronab Adhikary, Ernest Hernandez, Minzhong Zhu, Elvis Rivera, Andrew Mahoney and Nazir Nazary who are all members of the Community Response Team and accused of being part of the coverup involving Davis.
Also listed as defendants are John Chell, who was the NYPD Chief of Department at the time as well as NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, who are accused of implementing the policy encouraging officers to use their patrol cars as weapons.
Watch the video below.
Lying Cops
The incident took place on the afternoon of Aug. 28, 2023, when Davis left his friend’s house on a scooter to get his phone repaired at the Boost Mobile Store at 200 E. 2nd St. in Manhattan.
He noticed the unmarked cop car following him as he was traveling southbound on Avenue D before he turned right on E. 2nd St.
According to the lawsuit:
Concerned as to why someone would be following him, Mr. Davis initially drove past the Boost Mobile store. Realizing that he had missed the store, Mr. Davis turned around and drove the short distance back eastbound in the bike lane.
As Mr. Davis rode eastbound in the bike lane and approached the Boost Mobile, Defendant Liandrakis quickly swerved his unmarked NYPD vehicle out of the middle lane of vehicular traffic and directly into the bike lane, intentionally striking Mr. Davis head-on with the NYPD vehicle.
The collision threw Mr. Davis into the air and sent him crashing down on the hood of the NYPD vehicle. Mr. Davis’ head struck the windshield with such force that the windshield on the NYPD vehicle cracked. Mr. Davis fell onto the street and lost consciousness.
Mr. Davis awoke to Defendants Liandrakis, Roberts, and Adhikary placing handcuffs on him.
After the collision, Davis was in pain and complaining of dizziness as more cops arrived on the scene who would end up as defendants in the lawsuit. He was also bleeding and could hardly walk.
An ambulance arrived about 20 minutes later and conducted a quick evaluation, but the cops insisted on taking him to jail instead of allowing him to be transported to a local hospital.
He remained lock up in a cell for several hours before he was released with several charges, including reckless driving, reckless endangerment, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, driving the wrong direction on a one-way street, and driving a motor vehicle without a license.
In the criminal complaint filed against Davis, Liadrakis claimed that Davis had “crashed into a police vehicle that was attempt to avoid the collision.”
But he apparently was unaware that the incident was captured on video, showing that if anybody was guilty of reckless driving and endangerment, it was him. The lawsuit states the reckless driving charge against Davis was dismissed on September 12, 2023 but does not elaborate on the other charges, and a search through the online court system for New York City shows no mention of any charges against Davis.
It was not the first time lies told by NYPD about Black people were exposed by video evidence, including last year when a cop claimed an activist broke into his home, making him fear for his life when all he was doing was protesting in front of the cop’s house.
Corrupt Unit
The day after the crash, NYPD Sgt. Ernest Hernandez, one of the cops who showed up to the scene after the incident, went along with Liadrakis’ lies, filling out and signing a police accident report, claiming that Liandrakis was unable to avoid the crash.
Considering Hernandez along with the other cops were members of the department’s Community Response Team, it should come to no surprised he lied to protect his lying officers, according to the claim that laid out in detail the corrupt history behind each officer involved in the crash.
According to a ProPublica analysis of Civilian Complaint Review Board records, more than half of the officers assigned to the CRT have been found to have engaged in misconduct at least once in their career, as compared to about 15% of officers across the NYPD. More than 40 officers assigned to the CRT have three or more cases of substantiated misconduct.
Defendant Daughtry, one of the founders of the CRT, has been found by the Civilian Complaint Review Board to have repeatedly engaged in misconduct, including for pointing a gun and threatening to kill a motorcyclist.
Defendant Chell, another leader of the CRT, was found liable by a civil jury for intentionally fatally shooting a man in 2008. Chell claimed he fired the gun by accident and was never criminally charged.
Defendant Officer Liandrakis, a member of the CRT, has an extensive record of alleged misconduct, including allegations of excessive force, false arrest, and malicious prosecution.
Defendant Officer Roberts, a member of the CRT, also has a record of alleged misconduct, including allegations of excessive force. Defendant Officer Adhikary has a record of alleged misconduct, including allegations of false arrest and malicious prosecution.
Defendant Officer Hernandez, a member of the CRT, has an extensive record of alleged misconduct, including allegations of excessive force that have been substantiated by the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
Deadly Policy
The policy encouraging cops to use their vehicles as weapons was introduced in 2022 and directed towards officers working with the Community Response Team which is described by the NYPD as a “contingent of police officers that addresses persistent crime and pattern offenses throughout the city.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD cop, also backed the new policy.
Over the next three years, high-speed pursuits involving the Community Response Team skyrocketed compared to earlier years, the claim states.
Community Response Team officers are plainclothes NYPD officers who typically wear polo shirts and khakis and drive unmarked police vehicles, like the one that collided into Mr. Davis.
Chell and Daughtry consistently praised CRT’s pursuits of all-terrain vehicles, illegal scooters, and “ghost cars” with illicit license plates as being necessary for public safety.
In light of this policy, beginning in December 2022, the number of dangerous and oftentimes fatal vehicle pursuits by CRT began to skyrocket.
From January 2023 to June 2023, there were 625 recorded vehicle pursuits, more than the number of pursuits in the previous five years combined.
The lawsuit also points out another incident involving a Black man named Samuel Williams who was killed while riding a dirt bike being pursued by police when an unmarked car crashed into him head-on, not much different than the Davis incident.
Williams was one of at least a dozen victims killed by NYPD during this period after the new policy was introduced, according to The City.
In 2025, the policy was rewritten to forbid officers from pursing vehicles over misdemeanors and traffic infractions.
“In February 2025, after over two years of these rampant and unconstitutional pursuits, NYPD Commissioner Tisch issued a directive prohibiting officers from engaging in vehicle pursuits for low-level offenses like traffic violations or nonviolent misdemeanors and limiting such pursuits to felonies and violent misdemeanors,” the claim states.
“Commissioner Tisch admitted that the NYPD’s ‘pursuits for violations and low level crimes can be both potentially dangerous and unnecessary.’”
But the damage has already been done to many citizens, including Davis.
“In the case of Mr. Davis, the consequences of the implementation of this policy were life-changing: he was thrown off his scooter into the air and landed headfirst on the windshield and hood of the police car, at which point he fell onto the street and lost consciousness,” the claim states.
“As a result, and in addition to other injuries, Mr. Davis suffered permanent hearing impairment and ongoing pain and soreness to his body.”
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