A former NYPD officer, Tyler Paul, has been sentenced to prison following a fatal car crash that took the life of Kawan Edwards, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced. According to a press release from the Attorney General's office, Paul, 25, of Queens County, pleaded guilty before Supreme Court Justice Michael Hartofilis on December 11, 2024, to charges including Criminally Negligent Homicide and Assault in the Second and Third Degrees.
Sentencing for the former policeman includes one to three years for Criminally Negligent Homicide and three and a half years with three years of post-release supervision for Second-Degree Assault, as well as 364 days for Third-Degree Assault—all of which will run concurrently. After waving his right to appeal, Paul will not be challenging the sentencing decision. It was on the morning of April 26, 2023, while speeding in his personal vehicle, Paul, who was off-duty, made a lane change without signaling and subsequently lost control and hit Mr. Edwards.
Mr. Edwards, reportedly working as a contractor for the Department of Transportation, was putting up construction signs on the shoulder of the Grand Central Parkway in Queens when the collision occurred. The impact caused Paul to lose control of his car, which then struck Edwards with fatal consequences. After being transported to a local hospital, Edwards was later pronounced dead.
The Office of Special Investigations (OSI), under New York State Executive Law Section 70-b, operates with the mandate to review incidents where a police officer might cause a person's death, irrespective if the officer was on-duty or off-duty. Following the assessment, if an officer is indicated to have potentially caused the death, OSI would then conduct a full investigation—just as they did in Paul's case. This uniform review process stands regardless of whether the deceased was armed or unarmed, in custody, or not. According to the Attorney General's office, this tragic event was subject to all these legal protocols.
