September 15,2014
NEW YORK— The fatal police shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Missouri, has brought new attention to other allegations of excessive force and bias against racial minorities and poor communities.
Days after the Ferguson shooting, police in nearby St. Louis shot and killed Kajieme Powell, a mentally-disturbed man who was holding a knife.
A largely black crowd of New Yorkers demonstrated recently to protest the July death of Eric Garner.
He died after police put him in a chokehold while trying to arrest him for a misdemeanor.
Jumaane Williams is a member of the New York City Council. In 2011, he and a friend, another black man, were shoved around and mistakenly arrested at a West Indian Day parade.
“We both ended up in cuffs. And I firmly believe, and said then that if we were of a different hue, it wouldn’t have happened the way that it happened," said Williams.
Williams says that while most police serve honorably, some are biased - and express it with over-policing or using excessive force against people of color or the poor.
“It’s something we have to look into, and what bothers me about not addressing race and class being policed differently, you’re invalidating whole communities and the experiences they’ve had," he said.
The New York Police Department has announced plans for retraining officers in the use of force and community relations.
Effective anti-racism training is also necessary - says former police officer Eugene O’Donnell. But he says errors and abuse in policing are not the primary problem.
“Not that there’s not issues in the police world, but the larger issues of why do we have more laws with every passing year, why is the authority of the police so broad, why is it almost impossible to convict police who are on duty of crimes? Those are legislative and often assisted by judicial and prosecutorial decisions," said O'Donnell.
O’Donnell says that focusing on police ignores the real issue: the many laws, arrest warrants and sentencing guidelines that funnel people in poor communities, especially minorities, into prison.
Family members of two other black men killed in local police shootings recently appeared on a New York radio show, calling for the U.S. Justice Department to take action.
Constance Malcolm’s 18-year-old son, Ramarley Graham, was shot and killed in 2012, by a police officer who chased him into his grandmother’s house.
The officer reportedly said he fired when he thought he saw Graham reaching for a gun in his waistband. No gun was found.
Malcolm has collected 33,000 signatures on a petition demanding action from federal prosecutors.
"We have to put a stop to police brutality, our kids matter, our black and Latino boys matter, you can't just shoot them down and pretend they're target practice, 'cause they're not," she said.
The FBI says local police departments report a total of about 400 “justifiable” killings by police per year.
But the FBI does not verify the accuracy of the reports, and police killings considered unjustified are not included.
An estimated 25percent of those killed are African American - double their representation in the population.
"We have been failed on a local level and the only way we are going to get any type of accountability now will be on a federal level," said son of victim, Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr.
Kenneth Chamberlain’s father, retired Marine Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., lived alone in White Plains, New York, and suffered from heart disease.
He was fearful and held a knife when police banged on his door after he accidentally triggered his medical alarm pendant.
Much of the 2011 incident was recorded by the medical-alarm service and a camera on a police Taser.
Police refused a niece's offer to help calm her uncle. After an hour, they forced entry, tasered and shot beanbags at Chamberlain, and then - two live rounds.
“And you can listen to it, and I’ve challenged anyone to listen to that audio and tell me that you don’t come back with a fact-based conclusion that this was misconduct and murder," said Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr.
A grand jury declined to return an indictment against the police officer who shot Kenneth Chamberlain.
Chamberlain's son has filed a wrongful death suit, and called for the Justice Department to finish the investigation it opened in 2012.