Smh: Officer in Ramarley Graham Shooting Won’t Face U.S. Charges...
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/nyregion/officer-in-ramarley-graham-shooting-wont-face-us-charges.html?_r=0
Officer in Ramarley Graham Shooting Won’t Face U.S. Charges
A family’s four-year quest to hold a white New York City police officer criminally accountable for the fatal shooting an unarmed black teenager in the bathroom of his Bronx home ended on Tuesday, when federal prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to pursue criminal charges.
The family of the teenager, Ramarley Graham, has waged a public battle, pressing for Officer Richard Haste, who shot Mr. Graham, to be held to account.
Officer Haste had been indicted in state court for the shooting, but the manslaughter charges were thrown out because of a prosecutorial error. A second grand jury then declined to indict him.
The shooting of Mr. Graham preceded the death of Eric Garner on a Staten Island street, occurring before an unarmed black man was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., and before the nation’s attention was focused on the use of force by law enforcement officers and their relationship with black people in the communities they police.
Mr. Graham’s family had expressed hope that Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, would bring a civil rights case against the officer. Mr. Graham’s parents, after meeting with Mr. Bharara at his office on Tuesday, revealed at a news conference that they had been told there would be no prosecution.
Mr. Bharara confirmed it in a detailed statement issued a short time later.
“Neither accident, mistake, fear, negligence nor bad judgment is sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation,” Mr. Bharara’s statement said.
In the end, according to prosecutors, although Mr. Graham was unarmed, “there are no witness accounts or physical evidence that materially contradict Officer Haste’s statement that Mr. Graham appeared to be pulling something from his waistband at the time of the shooting.”
The city ultimately agreed to pay the family $3.9 million to settle a wrongful-death suit.
Mr. Graham’s mother, Constance Malcolm, who was surrounded by supporters as she stood in front of the United States attorney’s office, called the decision by the federal prosecutor “another slap in the face.”
In the justice system, Ms. Malcolm said, it “doesn’t seem like our kids’ life matters.”
“Time and time again, you see it over and over,” she continued, “this officer walks free, they get a pay raise, they get a promotion and nothing has been done to them. This is sending the wrong message. Even in your own home, you’re not even safe anymore.”
The episode unfolded on the afternoon of Feb. 2, 2012, when officers in a narcotics unit spotted Mr. Graham, 18, on a street in the Wakefield section of the Bronx.
“Video evidence from a nearby business shows Mr. Graham adjusting the front of his pants as he walked northbound on White Plains Road near the bodega,” Mr. Bharara’s statement said.
The officers were suspicious of the way Mr. Graham moved his hands and thought he might be armed, according to the statement.
When Mr. Graham walked away, the officers, from the Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit of the 47th Precinct, followed him to his family’s home.
“As Mr. Graham opened the front door, an unmarked police vehicle quickly pulled up and stopped near the front of the house,” Mr. Bharara’s statement said. “As Officer Haste and another officer exited the vehicle, Mr. Graham looked in the direction of the officers and then quickly stepped inside the house and closed the front door.”
Officer Haste ran up to the front door and found it locked.
“He then unsuccessfully attempted to kick the door open,” according to the statement.
The officers went to the back of the house and gained access. Officer Haste made his way to the second floor.
“The evidence establishes that Officer Haste advanced into the hallway of the apartment with his firearm drawn, where he encountered Mr. Graham,” Mr. Bharara said.
Officer Haste told investigators that he ordered Mr. Graham to show his hands. Instead, according to his account, the teenager moved into an adjacent bathroom.
“At this critical moment in time, no other witness present in the apartment, including Mr. Graham’s grandmother, had a view of Mr. Graham,” according to the statement. “Officer Haste stated that he believed that Mr. Graham was reaching for the weapon that had been described in the earlier radio transmission, and that he fired one round from his weapon in response to a perceived deadly threat.”
It turned out that Mr. Graham was not armed. A bag of marijuana was found in the toilet bowl, but no gun was found at the scene.
Comments
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It took four years, a manslaughter charge that got thrown out and a jury that failed to indict for them to come to this conclusion! Then got the nerve to say there are no winners! Tell that ? to the family who had to bury their child then watch as the police who shot him, walk free and reap benefits from it. ? the whole system!
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That's why we have to publicly celebrate when pigs die.
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Not much has changed with how we're treated with the criminal justice system since slavery.
Mock juries, no indictments, ? trials. Murdering pigs getting off on rigged technicalities, then get raises & junior g-man badges.
Notice how they don't mind giving away the taxpayers money to "settle" these police shooting cases (because the law allows them to do so without admitting responsibility for the killing).
Then they go back on the street "emboldened" by a crooked, inherently racist system that has never valued black life.
I hate these pigs. -
Where's the apology to the family? But anyway, I know that it's a different jurisdiction and a different set of circumstances, but how it that Erin Andrews get a cash out for $55 million and all that happened to her was some nasty white muthafucka made a naked tape of her, but the City only has to pay Ramarley Graham $3.9 million for the boy's death. Something is hella wrong with this ? . One day, one of the victims (or their family,) needs to take the one of these wrongful death suits to trial so they can get a major cash out instead of the insulting settlement. Maybe if jurisdictions would have to making cash out in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, then maybe their would be some incentive on these municipalities part to get the Neo Gestapo under control.
