Ex-Marine shot and killed by police in own house

[Chun Liroy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/ny...ions.html?_r=1

The niece stood in the darkened stairwell of the Winbrook Houses, listening, as 20 feet away five police officers yelled at her uncle, who had locked himself in his apartment.

It was 5:25 on a chill November morning. The officers banged loud and hard, demanding that her 68-year-old uncle open his door.

“He was begging them to leave him alone,” she recalls. “He sounded scared.” She pulls her shawl about her shoulders and her voice cracks; she is speaking for the first time about what she saw. “I heard my uncle yelling, ‘Officers, officers, why do you have your guns out?’ ”

The string of events that night sounds prosaic, a who-cares accumulation of little mistakes and misapprehensions. Cumulatively, though, it is like tumbling down the stairs. Somehow the uncle, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., a former Marine who had heart problems and wheezed if he walked more than 40 feet, triggered his medical alert system pendant. The system operator came on the loudspeaker in his one-bedroom apartment, asking: “Mr. Chamberlain, are you O.K.?” All of this is recorded.

Mr. Chamberlain didn’t respond. So the operator signaled for an ambulance. Police patrol cars fell in behind — standard operating procedure in towns across America. Except an hour later, even as Mr. Chamberlain insisted he was in good health, the police had snapped the locks on the apartment door.

They fired electric charges from Tasers, and beanbags from shotguns. Then they said they saw Mr. Chamberlain grab a knife, and an officer fired his handgun.

Boom! Boom! Mr. Chamberlain’s niece Tonyia Greenhill, who lives upstairs, recalls the echoes ricocheting about the hall. She pushed out a back door and ran into the darkness beneath overarching oaks. He lay on the floor near his kitchen, two bullet holes in his chest, blood pooling thick, dying.

It makes sense to be humble in the presence of conflicting accounts. The White Plains public safety commissioner declared this a “warranted use of deadly force”; the shooter was later put on modified assignment. Mr. Chamberlain, in the commissioner’s telling, had withstood electric charges, grabbed a butcher knife and charged the officers.

The alert system phone in Mr. Chamberlain’s apartment recorded most of the standoff, as did a security camera in the hall. And the officers’ Tasers carried video recorders.

Last month, the Westchester County district attorney played these for the dead man’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., who teaches martial arts for a local nonprofit organization and intends to file a lawsuit. He is lithe, with a shaved head, and takes pride in a reasoned manner. “My family, we’re not into histrionics,” he says. “We don’t run down the street inciting riot.”

His voice cracks, though, as he describes the tapes. “I heard fear,” he says. “In my 45 years on this earth, I never heard my father sound like that.”

The district attorney will present the case to a grand jury and has not released transcripts. But the family’s recollection matches that of neighbors who listened through closed doors.

They say officers taunted Mr. Chamberlain. He shouted: “Semper fi,” the Marine Corps motto. The police answered with loud shouts of “Hoo-rah!” Another officer, the niece says, said he wanted to pee in Mr. Chamberlain’s bathroom.

Someone, the niece and neighbors say, yelled a racial epithet at the door. Black and white officers were present.

Kenny Randolph listened from his apartment across the hall. “They put fear in his heart,” he says. “It wasn’t a crime scene until they made it one.”

The police say Mr. Chamberlain was “known” to them, although it appears he had not been convicted of a crime. There are intimations that he wrestled with emotional issues. Sometimes, neighbors say, he talked to himself. Who’s to say? As often, life’s default position is set to “complicated.”

Many police departments have trained corps of officers expert in talking with the emotionally upset. Their rule of thumb: talk quietly and de-escalate. That night in White Plains, no one appeared to have de-escalated anything.

Mr. Chamberlain sounded spooked. His son recalls hearing his father say on tape: “This is my sworn testimony. White Plains officers are coming in here to kill me.” A few minutes later, a bullet tore through his rib and heart. The ambulance took him to White Plains Hospital, where he soon died.

His son lives five minutes away. He says he could have talked his father down. Standing in the office of his lawyer Randolph M. McLaughlin, he mimes knocking on his dad’s door. “Dad, it’s me, Ken, I’m here.” His eyes are bloodshot and brimming. “I always said, ‘I’m the protector now.’ But I wasn’t there when he needed me.”

I have no words. Pic of son for reference...

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...THAM-popup.jpg

Did all police just suddenly lose the ability to go by protocol this month?

[Lucavi]

Cops are having a field-day this March.

[Valisk]

Did all police just suddenly lose the ability to go by protocol this month?

Cops are having a field-day this March.

November morning

Say wuuuuut?!

Shouldn't have been wearing a life alert pendant in a warzone.

Not passing judgment on this particular case because I don't know any/all the facts, but I think people need to learn proper protocol when dealing with the police. Sure the rebellious types might cringe at the thought of saying yes sir, no sir, or laying down with your hands in plain sight, etc. but that could be the difference between life and death. Pride doesn't stop bullets. It's better to be humiliated and escape with your life to sue/open an investigation against law enforcement, than to die and have your case fall on deaf ears or be swept under the rug.

[Greatguardian]

I'm pretty sure an ex-marine knows how to take orders from authority figures. It was insinuated pretty heavily that the man had mental problems which could cause this sort of reaction.

[Qalbert]

Maybe police should learn protocol on someone saying there's no medical emergency so don't break the door down and shoot me.

[Lucavi]

Say wuuuuut?!

Shouldn't have been wearing a life alert pendant in a warzone.

Not passing judgment on this particular case because I don't know any/all the facts, but I think people need to learn proper protocol when dealing with the police. Sure the rebellious types might cringe at the thought of saying yes sir, no sir, or laying down with your hands in plain sight, etc. but that could be the difference between life and death. Pride doesn't stop bullets. It's better to be humiliated and escape with your life to sue/open an investigation against law enforcement, than to die and have your case fall on deaf ears or be swept under the rug.

He was old and probably had dementia or something. The police should know how to handle someone who could possibly have mental problems without resorting to shooting a gun. They had tazers and beanbags ; keep firing those until he goes down.

[Senji]

At least something good came of this.

Whiteplains PD are all the stereotypical douche cops. Shits are never given.

[Correction]

She pulls her shawl about her shoulders and her voice cracks

A scarf on a woman; can't be trusted.

[Cream Soda]

TLDR version? Tried reading it twice and I'm out of it today, couldn't follow along at all.

[Chun Liroy]

Did you read the article? It was a 68-year old grandfather who was being shot with Tazers and Beanbag shot guns, and obviously not in a right mental state. He called them, then told them he was fine and for them to go away, yet they broke down his door and shot him with beanbags and tazers. Hell, a niece was in the house that they could have asked about the situation, and his son lived 5 minutes away. I didn't know when there's hostage situations (this is the only thing I could possibly think of to relate the similarities), you break down the door and go guns blazing. You talk to the guy, you don't bang on the fucking door til it opens.

[Sera]

Fuck it, I'm just going to stop reading the news entirely.

Fuck.

[Lucavi]

It won't stop these killings, so don't shut yourself away, Sera. Just hold your black husband tight each night that he comes home safe.

WE'RE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES NOW!

[Chun Liroy]

If we we're endangered it'd be illegal to kill us.

[Valisk]

If we we're endangered it'd be illegal to kill us.

Misdemeanor.

Being black is a felony punishable by firing squad.

[Sera]

lol, +1 to Chun Li

Seriously though I'm starting to have panic attacks about shit like this. I saw a video of a guy who got shot in front of a Pizzeria in Brooklyn because some stupid fuck "thought he was someone else." Just minding his own business having a slice and gets popped. Now all I think about is how insane I would go if anyone shot Ryko like that. I have to stop reading shit like this, man.

[jmc]

Needs more verbal judo ......

(verbal judo is a term used to de-escalate a situation via words, not actions.)

Im curious about the company that has the medical response. Was it lifeline? If so, they have account notes about the individual..... Animals in the house, past actions towards medics, weapons in the house etc.....

[Qalbert]

@sera they can try to shoot him but the bullets would richochet off

[Qalbert]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4BU4M5jGGf...otBadumtsh.jpg

[Greatguardian]

I wouldn't let it affect you too much. Worrying about it isn't going to do anything to prevent it from happening. I'm neither Muslim nor Arab, but in Texas around September 2001 most people couldn't tell the difference. I heard about all the various attacks on Arab-Americans going on around the country, but it's not like locking myself indoors for a few years would solve anything. If someone wanted to kill me, they were going to try to kill me regardless of how afraid I was. Hell, if anything, those sorts of people can smell fear - they feed on it.

Stand tall, walk softly, and carry a big stick. Having multiple black belts doesn't mean shit in a fight against multiple opponents, but being able to stay calm and confident when confronted has always been more than enough to defuse any potential altercations in my experience.

[Sera]

curious about the company that has the medical response. Was it lifeline? If so, they have account notes about the individual..... Animals in the house, past actions towards medics, weapons in the house etc.....

I knew it. They denied that when they "responded" to my uncle's 911 call when he was dying. I said the slowness of their response made it seem like they had notes on him (which would have made sense) and they denied it. lol at them TOTALLY LYING.

@sera they can try to shoot him but the bullets would richochet off

lol. i hope so