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Cop Who Shot Unarmed Black Marine Vet Also On Trial In Separate Police Brutality Case
By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 5, 2012
Modified Apr 5, 2012
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 5, 2012
Modified Apr 5, 2012
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This week, the Westchester District Attorney's Office announced they will present the case of an unarmed chronically ill elderly black man who was shot to death by White Plains police—who were supposed to have been there to help him—to a grand jury within the month. Five months after that shooting, police finally revealed the name of the officer who shot Marine veteran Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr.—and it turns out that White Plains Officer Anthony Carelli is due in court later this month in a federal police brutality case.
Carelli is one of six cops named in a $10 million civil suit brought by twin brothers Jereis (Jerry) Hatter and Salameh (Sal) Hatter—they accuse him of battering them during a disorderly-conduct arrest outside the Black Bear Saloon in downtown White Plains during Memorial Day weekend 2008. They claim Carelli beat Jereis with a police baton, causing head and eye injuries, while he was handcuffed to a pole in the booking area of the police station. They also claim he called him a "rag head." “He hit me in my eye with a nightstick and then he kicked me in my nuts,” Jereis Hatter told the News. “He shouldn’t be a cop.”
All charges against the brothers for the disorderly-conduct arrest were dismissed last August by a judge who complained that testimony about the incident resembled a “Quentin Tarantino script” because everyone had a different version of what happened. In his deposition, Carelli said on the stand that Jereis hit his own head against the plastic partition in the police car “several” times on the way to the police station: “I told him to stop banging his head,” Carelli said.
Carelli, an officer since 2004, is accused of shooting Chamberlain Sr. on Nov. 19 after an hour-long standoff with police. Chamberlain Sr., who suffered from a chronic heart condition and wore a pendant to signal LifeAid, had mistakenly triggered his medical alert that evening—police insisted on entering his apartment, although he said he was fine. Tensions grew as one officer who allegedly used the N-word, another officer was reportedly heard yelling, “I need to use your bathroom to pee!”, and others allegedly were taunting Chamberlain’s military service after they discovered he was a former Marine.
The lawyer for the family of Chamberlain Sr., who has reviewed the LifeAid audiobox recording (which picked up every sound inside the apartment during the fatal confrontation) and the security camera video, said: “The minute they got in the house, they didn’t even give him one command. They never mentioned ‘put your hands up.’ They never told him to lay down on the bed. The first thing they did...you could see the Taser light up...and you could see it going directly toward him.” Police claim Chamberlain later came at them with a knife—which wasn't captured on video if it happened—and one cop fired two shots. Chamberlain died a few hours later in surgery from his wounds.
Tagged
cops
heart condition
Kenneth Chamberlain
Kenneth Chamberlain sr.
police shooting
westchester
White Plains
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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