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Unarmed Black Marine Vet's 2011 Death By Police Will Get Grand Jury Probe
By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 4, 2012
Modified Apr 4, 2012
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 4, 2012
Modified Apr 4, 2012
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Last November, an unarmed chronically ill elderly black man was shot to death by White Plains police who were supposed to have been there to help him. Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., a former Marine who suffered from a chronic heart condition and wore a pendant to signal LifeAid, had mistakenly triggered his medical alert—and although he told police he was fine, he ended up in an hour-long standoff with an officer screaming: "I don't give a f*** n*****, open the door." Police broke in and shot him with stun and beanbag guns—and now, four months after claiming the shooting was "justified" as self-defense, the Westchester District Attorney's Office announced they will present the case to a grand jury within the month.
Chamberlain's son Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. and two lawyers told the Daily News that LifeAid’s audiobox recorded every sound inside the apartment during the fatal confrontation on Nov. 19. A LifeAid employee had requested that a squad car go by the house to check on him after Chamberlain set off the alert (likely in his sleep) and he hadn't responded to the two-way audiobox installed in his apartment. When police arrived, he refused to open the door, and became agitated as more and more police showed up with guns drawn. He repeatedly told them he was't injured, and asked them to leave.
According to the official police report, the officers heard loud noises inside and thought someone else might be in danger—they claim they needed to force their way inside to make sure everything was okay. But on the tapes, in addition to the 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 LifeAid dispatcher, who was listening to the entire confrontation remotely, offered at some point to contact Chamberlain's family members to intercede, and even tried to cancel the call for police assistance. But according to the lawyers, a police officer can be heard saying “We don’t need any mediators." When police finally got in after the long standoff, Chamberlain was standing inside his apartment, wearing only boxer shorts, with his arms at his side and his hands empty, according to the son and the family’s lawyers.
“The minute they got in the house, they didn’t even give him one command,” one the family's lawyers told the News, describing security camera video which captured the moment. “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.
Chamberlain's son has been fighting to get the case attention ever since: a petition on Change.org has gathered more than 170,000 signatures. He wrote: "This case not only brings into question the policies and practices of this department; but it is an open question whether it was inevitable, particularly in light of the audio tapes and video tapes witnessed by Mr. Chamberlain’s family members and attorneys where racial slurs and expletives were used before ultimately shooting him twice in the chest and killing him. "
In the wake of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Travon Martin and the campaign to bring his shooter to trial, the DA listened. The family's lawyers noted that at least some of the tapes and video will be shown during a trial, and they believe it will prove Chamberlain was unarmed: “We believe that the grand jury should be able to fairly come to a conclusion that this is a homicide.”
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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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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