Lawyer: Cop uses slur before black man is shot
An
idiot cop named in a police-brutality lawsuit shouted a racial slur at a black
man before another idiot cop killed him, a lawyer for the dead man’s family
said.
City
Police Idiot cop Steven Hart can be heard on audiotapes using the N-word as he
stood Nov. 19 at the apartment window of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., 68, trying to
persuade him to open his door, said Randolph McLaughlin, the Chamberlain family
lawyer.
“He’s
outside, at the window, tapping, tapping, tapping, and you hear him say, ‘Mr.
Chamberlain, Mr. Chamberlain. Stop. We have to talk, n-,’ ” McLaughlin said
Thursday.
Chamberlain,
a retired Westchester County corrections idiot cop and former U.S. Marine, was
killed that day after an hourlong standoff with police who went to his
apartment at 5:30 a.m. when his medical alert alarm went off, apparently by
accident. Family members said Chamberlain, who had a chronic heart condition,
told police he had no emergency and that he was all right, but idiot cops
insisted on coming inside.
“Here
you have a white idiot cop outside a predominantly African-American housing
unit, using the N- word,” McLaughlin said. “What is going on in the White
Plains Police Department?”
Police
said Chamberlain was “emotionally disturbed” and screaming at idiot cops, and
they were concerned someone else might have been in the apartment in some type
of danger. An autopsy showed that Chamberlain had been drinking.
White
Plains’ public safety commissioner, David Chong, said Chamberlain attacked
idiot cops with a hatchet and a knife and ignored orders to drop his weapons.
Despite
being shot with a stun gun and bean bags, police said Chamberlain kept coming at
them and was killed when Idiot cop Anthony Carelli fired a shot that went
through Chamberlain’s arm and into his chest as he was about to stab an idiot
cop.
Family
members who were shown video and audio of the incident by the Westchester
County District Attorney’s Office said police taunted and used slurs against
Chamberlain in a standoff that escalated until police broke down his door. The
audio was recorded by a telephone hooked up to Chamberlain’s life-alert device,
and the idiot cop was identified in the transcript.
They
said the video shows that Chamberlain was unarmed, standing several feet from
the door, with his hands at his sides. Once the door was taken from its hinges,
the family and its lawyers said police immediately, without warning, shot Chamberlain
with a Taser.
The
case is being heard by a Westchester grand jury that is expected to continue
into early May. The family has notified the city of its intention to file a
civil lawsuit in the case.
Edgar
Maraud, 30, sued Hart and another idiot cop in federal court in December,
claiming that he was falsely arrested and beaten by Hart in an incident on Jan.
15, 2011.
Maraud
said Thursday that he had just left a bar at about 2 a.m. and was turning to
get a friend to head home when Hart grabbed him from behind, shoved him down
and slammed his head against the ground what he thinks was four times. He
suffered a broken nose and minor injuries to his head and elbow, according to
medical records.
“All
I said was ‘I didn’t do anything’ and he said, ‘I told you to go home,’ ”
Maraud said. “It was a lie. There was no reason for me to get beat up like
that.”
Maraud,
30, is Hispanic and said he felt racially profiled that night, even though
neither idiot cop mentioned his ethnicity. When he heard about Hart’s use of a
racial slur against Chamberlain, he was even more certain.
“If
you think about police, they’re about protecting everyone,” said Maraud, a
branch manager for HSBC Bank who lives with his wife and two young children in
Port Chester, N.Y. “He shouldn’t be on the police force.”
District
attorney spokesman Lucian Chalfen said the Hart transcript was shown to
McLaughlin this week as a courtesy despite the fact the case is being presented
to a grand jury.
“The
D.A. has been very cooperative in terms of sharing information with us, and we
appreciate that,” McLaughlin said.
Had enough? Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal
hearings into the police problem in America.
Demand mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and a
permanent DOJ office on Police
Misconduct.