No officer indicted in black man killing

A Westchester County grand jury voted last week not to pursue a criminal indictment of a white police officer, Anthony Carelli, who is accused of killing a black man, Kenneth Chamberlain, while in his home last year in White Plains, New York.

However, the US Justice Department will consider filing a civil suit against officer Carelli.

District Attorney Janet DiFiore called the shooting of the 68-year-old former US Marine and correction officer “a tragedy on many levels.”

“It’s really hard to indict an officer, police officer in connection with the killing of a black man,” says Randolph McLaughlin, US Civil Rights attorney and Chamberlain’s family lawyer.

Officer Carelli, a police officer since 2004 and also on trial in a separate police brutality case, shot Chamberlain on November 19, 2011, after an hour-long standoff with police.

Chamberlain was shot and killed by Carelli after he and several other officers were sent to his apartment after his medical-alert pendant went off and he failed to respond to calls from the medical-alert agency operator.

Police forced the door down even after he said he didn’t want them to come in.

“The minute they got in the house, they didn’t even give him one command. They never mentioned ‘put your hands up.’ They never told him to lay down on the bed. The first thing they did…you could see the Taser light up…and you could see it going directly toward him,” McLaughlin said.

Investigators initially told the media that the victim was carrying a knife and threatening the officers despite the video taken by the taser seconds before shooting him shows his arms at his sides.

“The story that he was threatening them, well I think that is just absurd. At no time Mr. Chamberlain leaves his home. In America your home is your castle, the last refuge and they came into his home,” Mclaughlin went on to say.

Chamberlain’s family slammed the court decision in a statement saying they were “profoundly saddened” that the grand jury had not found reason to charge officer Carelli.

AO/GMA/IS

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