Thursday, April 5, 2012

Police Racism on the Rise (video)

Democracy Now!; Wisdom Quarterly (Notes from the New Police State)


Democracy Now! drops a bombshell revealing the name of the police officer who allegedly murdered in violation of his civil rights 68-year-old Kenneth Chamberlain, an innocent African-American Marine with a heart problem, who was brutalized and executed in his own home in White Plains, New York.

In November 2011 Chamberlain inadvertently triggered his medical alert pendant. As documented in audio recordings (the police did not realize they were being recorded by multiple devices), White Plains police reportedly used a racial slur, burst through Chamberlain’s door, Tasered him, then shot him dead -- all in an effort to see if he was okay due to his medical emergency, which they by then knew was a false alarm because they were told by Chamberlain's daughter and the medical alert company LifeAid.
"The last time I actually really saw my father, other than the funeral, was at the hospital, with his eyes wide open, his tongue hanging out his mouth, and two bullet holes in his chest," said Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr. "And I’m staring at my father, wondering, 'What happened?'"

The alleged shooter, Officer Anthony Carelli, is due in court later this month in an unrelated 2008 police brutality case.

Carelli is accused of being the most brutal of a group of officers who allegedly beat two arrestees of Jordanian descent and called them "rag heads."

Democracy Now speaks to Gus Dimopoulos, attorney for Jerry and Sal Hatter. "We allege that the police officers, while in the custody of the White Plains Police Department back at the station, you know, severely beat Jerry while being restrained by handcuffs. They hit him in the face with a nightstick, they kicked, they punched, they punched him, and then essentially charged him with a crime," Dimopoulos said.

Despite repeated requests from Chamberlain’s family for the name of the officer who killed him, White Plains Public Safety Commissioner David Chong only named Carelli as the shooter this morning, after his name appeared in an article written by Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News.

The White Plains police have refused to say whether Carelli has been disciplined or assigned to desk duty after brutalizing and fatally shooting Chamberlain. The victim's son, Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr., and his two attorneys, Mayo Bartlett and Abdulwali Muhammad, provide an update. Gus Dimopoulos, a lawyer for the 2008 victims, Jereis Hatter and Salameh Hatter, also appears.

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