WHITE
PLAINS, N.Y. – NAACP leaders from local and state chapters joined community
members Saturday in front of the Thomas Slater Center to demand accountability
for the death of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. in the form of a civilian review of
the Nov. 19 police shooting.
Leroy
Gadsden, president of the Jamaica, Queens, chapter of the NAACP, led a 12:30
p.m. press conference that filled the sidewalk area at 2 Fisher Court. He asked
the question "first posed by Thurgood Marshall: Does the Constitution
apply to African-Americans?"
"When
we look at the Kenneth Chamberlain murder by police officers, we find ourselves
asking that very question," Gadsden said. "Does the Constitution, in
fact, apply to us?"
On
May 3, a 23-person Westchester County grand jury decided not to
indict the White Plains police officers involved the Chamberlain
shooting.
"We
recognize that a life was lost, and this decision does not diminish that
fact," Public Safety Commissioner David Chong said in a May 3 statement.
The
next day, lawyers for the Chamberlain family wrote a letter asking for a criminal
investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which has said it will
review the evidence in the case. Additionally, Randolph McLaughlin, one of the
family lawyers, said they are also asking for a formal review of the entire
White Plains Police Department.
Chamberlain,
68, was shot Nov. 19 after police responded to a medical alert. Chong has said
that Chamberlain lodged a hatchet in the door when police were talking to him
from outside his ground-floor apartment at the Winbrook public housing complex,
and that he had a butcher knife when they forcibly entered. Chong said the officers
tried to use nonlethal tactics, but Chamberlain, a former Marine and correction
officer, came at one of the officers with the knife, prompting Officer Anthony
Carelli to shoot him twice in the chest. An autopsy found that Chamberlain was
legally drunk.
Like
Gadsden, Damon Jones, head of the Westchester chapter of Blacks in Law
Enforcement of America, called Saturday for an independent review and
questioned the fairness of the district attorney's investigation.
"We
cannot allow police to police the police anymore, because it does not work in
the benefit of black people in New York state," Jones said. "So we
have to make a stand here."
Chong's
May 3 statement the Police Department would conduct an
internal review of the incident and fully cooperate with an
independent study to be done by a panel of experts to review the department's
policies and procedures and recommend any improvements. Chong told The Daily White
Plains that his department will also fully cooperate with any inquiry by the
U.S. Justice Department.
Lena
Anderson, president of the White Plains and Greenburgh NAACP chapter, and Hazel
N. Dukes, president of the NAACP New York
State Conference, echoed Gadsden's remarks by saying they will not
rest until the officers involved have been prosecuted.