7 March 6-12, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | “He’s not dropping it, he’s not dropping it,” Gilpin-Braithwaite says, referring to the knife. Nazario instructs Rivera to “give [Kempf] another one” before Rivera tases him again. “Don’t do it, Daniel,” Gilpin-Braithwaite yells as she fires a second shot. “He’s not dropping it, he’s not dropping it!” Kempf’s body seizes up, then drops to the bathroom floor, motionless. “Shots fired, shots fired!” Gilpin-Braith- waite screams. Body cam footage captures her telling the officers, “He didn’t drop it.” Breathing heavily, she approaches Kempf, who is who is facedown in the bathroom, his back covered in blood. “Fuck,” she says. Gilpin-Braithwaite, walks out of the room looking shaken. A fellow officer hugs her, as- suring her it’s okay. According to to the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s report, an autopsy the following day revealed that Kempf died from a gunshot wound of the head. Excessive Use of Force? The two criminologists who viewed the body-cam footage say Kempf appeared not to pose an imminent or overt threat to the officers that would warrant the use of lethal force. “There’s a bit of an irony that I’m trying to prevent you from stabbing yourself, so I shoot you instead,” Dennis Kenney, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice tells New Times. “That always seems a little bit odd.” Kenney, a former Florida police officer with over 35 years of experience in criminal justice, notes that the footage did not show Kempf lunge at the officers or attempt to stab anyone. Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminol- ogy and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, credits the officers for plan- ning and discussing how to handle the situa- tion. But he, too, questions why Gilpin-Braithwaite opted for lethal force in- stead of waiting for the Taser to work. “The question I want to know is: ‘What was the imminent threat he posed when they shot him?’” Alpert says. “I thought the Taser, the less-lethal force, was absolutely reason- able. He had a knife. He was a threat — more of a threat to himself.” Alpert notes out that the prosecutors’ close-out memo includes mention that officer Gilpin-Braithwaite fired her firearm simulta- neously with the officer who fired his Taser. “Why wouldn’t you give the Taser an op- portunity to work?” he asks rhetorically. “It looked like it worked. But they also said he was only five feet away when he shot him with a Taser, so he may not have gotten enough distance between the prongs. Even so, it looked like he didn’t move [after being tased]. I mean, it looked like he was frozen.” Alpert says it’s customary police practice not to resort to deadly force unless there is an imminent threat to someone. “He hasn’t shown any aggression towards them, and he comes out, and he’s not dropping his knife. Well, I don’t think you can shoot him just because he’s not dropping it, not following orders,” he adds. And based on the video, it also may have been difficult for Kempf to drop the knife if his muscles had frozen up from the Taser. “It is possible that his physical reaction was to clench up,” Alpert says. What About Crisis Intervention? Kenney believes the situation may have had a different outcome if a crisis-intervention team had responded to the call to help de-es- calate. He says it’s ineffective for a group of officers to yell commands and point their weapons at a man in the middle of a mental- health crisis. “He came out with a knife and they’re yell- ing at him, ‘Stop. Don’t. Put it down,’” Ken- ney, the criminologist, notes. “People in mental crisis have a difficult time processing those kinds of commands, and they generally do nothing.” On that score, the 11th Judicial Circuit Criminal Mental Health Project does offer 40 hours of free Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Training to police officers in Miami-Dade County, aiming to “to bridge the gap between law enforcement and behavioral health.” “Through community partnerships and collaboration, this alliance promotes systems transformation that improves safety, reduces inappropriate incarceration, and redirects in- dividuals with mental illness and substance use disorders from the criminal justice sys- tem to the health care system, when appro- priate,” the course description reads. Captain Fernando Morales, the public in- formation officer for the Homestead Police Department, says officers have availed them- selves of the training for many years. “Currently, we have a standing commitment to send at least two officers per 40-hour ses- sion, which is roughly every month, with the exception being during the summer months when they are primarily training school board officers,” Morales tells New Times. Nationwise, many cities have experi- mented with dispatching mental-health pro- fessionals to 911 calls for people in distress. For instance, the Philadelphia Police Depart- ment has a “co-responder program,” called the Crisis Intervention Response Team, which assigns mental-health professionals to team up with cops on some 911 calls. The Denver Police Department also developed a similar co-responder program. Conflicting Narratives Months after her son’s death, Yaneitsy Rosete sued the City of Homestead in federal court, alleging that the use of lethal force was un- necessary because Kempf had “not done any- thing to threaten or provoke” the officers. (The family had previously filed a lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court to force the de- partment to release the body cam footage.) Leading up to the shooting, Kempf “had shown signs of depression, anxiety, and other symptoms associated with a mental and emo- tional health crisis,” the lawsuit states. The family believed that calling the police would result in Kempf being transported to a men- tal-health facility for treatment. “When the family called to request this as- sistance, they provided the details of [Kempf’s] mental health state and advised that based on their observations and interac- tion with [Kempf], there had been no threat of violence or danger posed by [Kempf],” the complaint reads. The suit contends that the officers were aware of Kempf’s mental-health struggles and that he might have been holding a butter knife. (The close-out memo describes the item as a “steak knife with a serrated metal blade.”) “At the time during this encounter, Daniel was approximately 12 to 14 feet away from all of the officers and made no pronouncements or movements to approach, lunge, or other- wise threaten any of the officers,” the com- plaint alleges. (The close-out memo states Officer Rivera was “only approximately five feet away from Kempf” when he deployed his Taser.) The lawsuit asserts that Gilpin-Braith- waite did not need to fire her weapon, con- sidering he had already been tased. In the close-out memo, Assistant State At- torney Ayana Duncan wrote that “[t]he ac- tions of Kempf in refusing to show his hands or to follow police commands to drop the knife, followed by his continued advance- ment toward officer Rivera while still armed with the knife[,] could constitute an assault of a law enforcement officer.” “[Kempf] began the use of lethal force,” Duncan added, when he exited the bathroom with a knife and walked toward the officers, shouting. “There was not enough space for the offi- cer to maneuver quickly to retreat, in the event that Kempf lunged at or continued to advance towards the officer, while armed with the knife,” Duncan wrote. Robert Pelier, the family’s attorney, main- tains that at no point in the video footage does Kempf lunge at the officers. He says the Taser incapacitated the 24-year-old, to the point where he was not in control of his skeletal system. “A plain view of the video does not support what these cops are saying,” Pelier tells New Times. In his statement to Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) following the shooting, Rivera said he was “in fear of his life” when Kempf came out of the bathroom with a knife. “[Rivera] stated, ‘I had nowhere to go,’ the memo reads. “I was stuck in the closet.” Nazario similarly told FDLE investigators that he considered Kempf’s actions to be ag- gressive and “that he had a well-founded fear that Kempf was a threat to himself and others.” According to a 2020 Miami Herald report, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fer- nandez Rundle had never charged an officer for an on-duty fatal shooting since she was first appointed to the office to replace Janet Reno in 1993. State Attorney’s Office spokes- person Ed Griffith confirms to New Times that there have not been any new prosecu- tions in the intervening five years. “It’s always justified, and it’s unfortunate,” attorney Pelier says. “It seems like a rubber stamp, and so my intent is to bring justice to the family.” [email protected] Kempf’s obituary noted his love for his cat, Bella. Daniel Kempf photo
