For the third time since 2008, a Westchester grand jury has decided not to indict a police officer involved in a deadly shooting, this time in the case of former Marine Kenneth Chamberlain. The 68-year-old was killed late last year in his apartment after a standoff with police, who showed up to check on Chamberlain after his medical alert device went off accidentally. According to the police version of events, they shot the “emotionally disturbed” man in self-defense as he attempted to stab an officer, but Chamberlain’s family has said that surveillance tape and audio from the scene show otherwise and include the police using racial slurs.
White Plains Police Officer Anthony Carelli, who is also accused in a separate racially charged police brutality incident, was cleared today in what District Attorney Janet DiFiore called a “tragic” case with “no reasonable cause for indictment.” But a lawyer representing the Chamberlain family claims the evidence shows him to be unarmed, while “the medical examiner’s autopsy report’s description of the path of the bullet shows that he could not have been raising his arm to stab an officer when he was shot,” according to the Journal News.
White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach said today that police “will be making copies of police investigative materials, including copies of video and audio recordings, available to members of the media.” In response, the local P.B.A. president said the release of the tapes could “put the lives of our officers and our community at risk.”
