By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
At least three police officers have testified before a Bronx
grand jury that is investigating the death of a black teenager shot in his
bathroom by the police in February, several people briefed on the investigation
said.
Family members of the teenager, Ramarley Graham, 18, are
scheduled to appear in the coming days before the grand jury, which is
considering criminal charges against the police officer who fired the single
fatal shot, said the people briefed on the investigation, who were granted
anonymity to discuss the continuing grand jury proceedings.
The police officer, Richard Haste, who is white, was part of
a team of narcotics officers that broke into Mr. Graham’s apartment in the
Wakefield section of the Bronx on Feb. 2 after hearing reports that the
teenager had a handgun in his waistband. Officer Haste confronted Mr. Graham in
his bathroom and shot him once, the police have said.
No weapon was discovered on Mr. Graham. The police found a
bag of marijuana in the toilet.
Mr. Graham’s death has raised questions about the aggressive
tactics used by the Police Department’s Street Narcotics Enforcement Units,
like the one in the 47th Precinct to which Officer Haste belongs.
After the shooting, the police commissioner, Raymond W.
Kelly, ordered a review of the operations of the street narcotics units. The
review found that some narcotics team officers were working in plain clothes,
in violation of a directive that they wear jackets identifying them as the
police, Mr. Kelly has said.
While the grand jury is primarily focused on Officer Haste’s
decision to shoot Mr. Graham, legal experts have given diverging opinions on
whether Officer Haste and his team were justified in breaking down the door to
the apartment without a warrant.
Surveillance camera images showed Mr. Graham walking
casually up to the front door, appearing unhurried, a moment before the police
officers sprinted into view.
Mr. Graham had come to the attention of the police as he and
two friends emerged from a bodega that Officer Haste’s team had under
observation because of reports of drug sales out front. Mr. Graham’s hand
movements were said to have led the officers to suspect that he had a gun in his
waistband, and an observation team of two police officers drove up White Plains
Road and onto East 229th Street following Mr. Graham and his two friends as
they made a brief stop at a building on that block.
Mr. Graham emerged from the building alone, and one of the
two officers in the observation car said over the police radio that he could
see a firearm.
The other observation officer offered a less definitive
response: he could see a black object in Mr. Graham’s waistband, according to
two people familiar with the account that the two officers gave to
investigators.
The observation car was just a short distance from Mr.
Graham, one of those people said.
The sergeant of the narcotics team, Scott Morris, asked the
two officers to confirm the gun sighting, both people said. This time, both
officers said they were certain the object was a gun.
But the two officers did not follow Mr. Graham as he walked
down East 229th Street to his home on the opposite side of the street, one of
the people said. Instead, they went into the building from which he had
emerged, in order to find his two friends and question them.
At the same time, a second group of officers from the
narcotics team, including Officer Haste, drove down East 229th Street and
spotted Mr. Graham as he crossed the street toward his home, according to a
lawyer for Mr. Graham’s family, Jeffrey L. Emdin, who said he was offering the
account given to the family by Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Kelly said that as the officers passed Mr. Graham, they
saw what they believed to be a gun, Mr. Emdin said. Soon the officers,
including Officer Haste, got out of the vehicle and ran to Mr. Graham’s home.
Mr. Emdin has said Mr. Graham was returning home to change
his clothes before he went out to see his girlfriend. Both his grandmother and
his 6-year-old brother were at home when he was shot. Mr. Emdin said he did not
believe Mr. Graham had a gun.
The two officers in the observation car, Tyrone Horne and
Andrew Jarvis, who are both black, and Sergeant Morris have testified before
the grand jury in the past two weeks, said two people with knowledge of the
matter.
Mr. Emdin said criminal charges against Officer Haste would
be “entirely appropriate.”
“He was shot and killed in his own home while unarmed,” he
said of Mr. Graham.