Tragedy: Stupid Cops Gun Down Elderly Veteran

[Jim_Jude]

Here's a tragedy no one is talking about.
Wonder why you haven't heard about it yet?

Killed at Home: White Plains, NY Police Called Out on Medical Alert Shoot Dead Black Veteran, 68
^^^LINK^^^

As the Trayvon Martin case draws national attention, we look at another fatal shooting of an African-American male that has received far less scrutiny. Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., a 68-year-old African-American Marine veteran, was fatally shot in November by White Plains, NY, police who responded to a false alarm from his medical alert pendant. The officers broke down Chamberlain’s door, tasered him, and then shot him dead. Audio of the entire incident was recorded by the medical alert device in Chamberlain’s apartment. We’re joined by family attorneys and Chamberlain’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr., who struggles through tears to recount his father’s final moments, including the way police officers mocked his father’s past as a marine. "For them to look at my father that way, (with) no regard for his life, every morning I think about it," he says.

[Bneterasedmynam]

Maybe if someone tells Spike Lee he can harass the wrong person over it. Although if they first tazed him then used a bean bag gun, it does leave some believability to their story.

[JohnnyCache]

Why did a door get kicked over medic alert

[Jim_Jude]

Why did a door get kicked over medic alert

good question, meanwhile the Skittles shooting is blowing up all over the place.

[JohnnyCache]

good question, meanwhile the Skittles shooting is blowing up all over the place.

It's pretty damn hard for the media to keep up with cops

[patfromlogan]

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/2...hite_plains_ny

It's all on film. And not being released

His son has heard the tapes, both his father's med-alert recording and the police recording: "... And in 45 years of me being on this earth, that was the very first time that I ever heard my father where he was pleading and begging for his life, someone who I looked at as being extremely strong, to hear him beg for his life, to say that this was his sworn testimony on the audio, which the police did not know that was being recorded. He said, "My name is Kenneth Chamberlain. This is my sworn testimony. White Plains police are going to come in here and kill me."

[tgace]

Let me try and answer this with each of my two experience hats. The first as a patrol officer and the second as a SWAT officer.

The first hat can see how a "medic alert" activation can turn into something larger and the second hat leaves me sort of scratching my head as to how this ended as it did.

First off I see the patrol response going something like this:

-"Radio to Car 51...respond to 123 Whatever Dr for a medic alert activation." Realize that people activate these medic alert devices for myriad reasons...not simply medical ones. Sometimes they hit them when they fall down and can't get up. Sometimes they hit them when their drug addicted grandson is trying to beat the whereabouts of the money stash. Sometimes they hit them as they are being home invaded. As a responding officer you don't just assume it's because the owner is having a heart attack. These things are one of those "exigent circumstances" instances. I have gone to them and had no response to the door...and after kicking it in discovered the owner down in the house somewhere.

-Responding officer arrives and is told by a male voice from behind a closed door "I'm fine...go away I'm not letting you in."

-Knowing what you do above you try to explain that you can't leave till your sure that the voice behind the door is really the owner of the alert device.

-"**** you...get a warrant."

-Time to call a Sergeant/Lieutenant and push this one up the chain.

Maybe I missed it, but was this a SWAT entry or was it patrol officers? I saw that there were "negotiators", but that doesn't always equal SWAT.

Now perhaps this goes as far as a SWAT callout...and this is where I put the second hat on...I can't understand the necessity of forcing an entry in a situation like this unless it's believed that a hostage or other party is at risk inside.

If negotiations determine that the person inside is indeed the owner of the device....perhaps I can see a circumstance where a determination that the subject is mentally unstable or perhaps physically ill was made (in NY we have mental health laws that allow LE to take someone who is a danger to themselves or others into mandatory mental/physical treatment) , but what circumstance necessitated the risk of a forced entry? When there is a lone person barricaded in a home I can see no logical reason for an entry. Negotiate them out, gas them out, wait them out or sometimes just pack it in and leave.

I can think of one reason this may have happened and it's an ugly one...someone in charge says "we cant keep paying these officers OT for a long stand off...go in and get him."

But this is all just spitballing without access to the evidence. The reality could be an entirely justified action or it could be even worse than it seems.

[tgace]

Ahhh..I didn't notice the transcript at the bottom of the link. Ugh. What a cluster ****.

[tgace]

http://www.lohud.com/article/2012033...ext%7CNews%7Cs

Chamberlain refused, and a standoff ensued, with a number of officers, including a hostage negotiator, trying to convince the Marine veteran and retired Westchester County correction officer to open his door.

Hmmm..that seems different from the transcript in the other link that gives the impression that the responding officers immediately forced entry.

[nils]

Another article on the topic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...chamberlain-sr