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| White Plains cop Anthony Carelli, the cop who fatally shot (murdered) retired Marine, working as deejay. |
Kenneth Chamberlain's niece details night of shooting, says deadly confrontation with police could've been avoided
Published: Thursday, April 5, 2012, 11:24 PM
Updated: Friday, April 6, 2012, 3:00 AM
Link to the Daily News Article
Union officials said a cop who fatally shot a 68-year-old retired Marine deserves a fair hearing (surprise) — a luxury the dead man’s son said his father never got.
“I’m for (Officer) Carelli getting a fair hearing, also,” Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. told the Daily News. “Let the facts speak for themselves. But did my father get a fair hearing? No, he (Carelli) played judge and executioner right then and there.”
Rob Riley, president of the White Plains Police Benevolent Association, defended Officer Anthony Carelli on Thursday. He praised his law enforcement career and railed against the public release of his name. (of course he said that, it's his job to prevent cops who kill innocent people from facing consequences)
“We are very disappointed that anybody would release the name of this officer during an ongoing investigation,” Riley said. (Again, doing what the cops pay union dues for)
“Officer Anthony Carelli has numerous commendations and has been an excellent police officer, both on and off the job, and he deserves the right to a fair and impartial inquiry,” he added. (So what? Doesn't everybody? Even the guilty?)
The Daily News was the first to report Carelli’s name after two sources familiar with the investigation confirmed he was the officer who shot and killed Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. on Nov. 19.
White Plains officials had refused for more than four months to identify any of the cops on the scene during the early morning shooting. (hoping it'd go away, or be swept under the rug)
“They should have released the names of the cops involved immediately after the shooting,” the son of the retired Marine said. (They do as long as it isn't a protected class under the double standard, meaning cops)
A News investigation also revealed that Carelli is one of six White Plains cops facing a $10 million lawsuit in federal court over allegations of excessive force and civil rights violations during the arrest of two young men outside a downtown White Plains bar in 2008.
Twin brothers Jereis (Jerry) Hatter and Salameh (Sal) Hatter claimed in the suit that the city of White Plains “failed to train its employees to control their tempers.” The brothers, whose parents are Jordanian immigrants, said Carelli was the most brutal of the cops who beat and kicked them, and called them “ragheads.”
That lawsuit is scheduled for trial on April 23.
Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore has been "investigating" the circumstances surrounding Chamberlain’s death since the shooting. She has told the dead man’s family that she will begin presenting evidence to a grand jury next week. The grand jury will determine whether the cops will be charged with crimes.
Immediately after the November clash, David Chong, the city’s public safety commissioner, declared all police actions justified. (Surprise!!!) He said Chamberlain was emotionally disturbed and became belligerent (So being belligerant, if he was, means it's ok to kill him?) when cops came to his door in the Winbrook Public Houses about 5 a.m. to help him.
Chamberlain, who suffered from heart trouble, had inadvertently set off a medical alert pendant, and when the medical company heard no response on a two-way call box installed in his apartment, they asked police to check on him. (That's all just check on him, apparently that's beyond the comprehension of the White Plains cops, who showed up in force, in body armor, to "check on him")
According to Chong, Chamberlain attacked police first with a hatchet and then a knife. In an attempt to subdue him, cops used a Taser, then shot beanbags at him. Carelli finally fired two shots from his service gun as Chamberlain advanced with a knife. (later shown to be lies by the PD to justify murder, and sweep murder of an innocent civilian under the rug.)
But the dead man’s son and his lawyers, who have seen videos from a camera attached to the Taser and a security camera, say Chamberlain had no weapon in his hand when cops fired the stun gun.
A niece of Chamberlain’s who lived in the same building and who was present during the incident, says the entire confrontation might have been defused if cops had allowed family members to intercede.
Tonyia Greenhill, 51, said she was awakened by a phone call that morning from her mother — the dead man’s sister — who in turn had received a call from the medical alert company.
“My mom asked me to go downstairs and check on my uncle,” Greenhill said.
She rushed down the stairs in her pajamas to Chamberlain’s first-floor apartment, her cell phone in hand.
“On my way down, I could hear my uncle screaming: ‘Please leave me alone, I’m all right. I don’t need help.’” Greenhill recalled.
When she got to the first floor, she saw five uniformed cops. All were facing Chamberlain’s door demanding to be let in. They turned to look at her for a moment, then faced back to the door.
“I told them, ‘I’m his niece,’” she said, but “they didn’t acknowledge me or anything.”
She then called her mother on her cell phone and the mother asked to speak to one of the cops.
An officer took the phone and spoke to Greenhill’s mother for a while, then handed the phone back to the niece. All the while, her uncle kept refusing to open the door.
He kept “pleading with them to leave him alone and telling them, ‘I know my rights,’” Greenhill said.
She ran back upstairs to her apartment to get a coat to put over her pajamas. When she returned a few moments later, the situation had escalated.
“They all had their guns drawn, and an African-American cop who was with them motioned me to get back upstairs,” she said.
From the landing, she could hear cops shaking and banging on the door.
One cop asked, “Does he have any family?”
She yelled out from the landing, “Yes, he does.”
Cops ignored her, she said.
Greenhill then went out a back entrance of the building at the Winbrook Houses and ran around to the front, where she saw several more cops, firefighters and an ambulance.
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| Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. (r.) says White Plains cop Anthony Carelli played judge and executioner in fatal shooting of his father. |
All the while, she could hear her uncle screaming: “Leave me alone! I didn’t call you here!”
She then went back to her apartment to put on some warmer shoes.
As she was returning down the stairs, she heard “two loud booms,” Greenhill said.
She asked a firefighter outside, “Did they just shoot my uncle?”
Paramedics soon came out of the building carrying her uncle on a stretcher.
He died during surgery about an hour later at White Plains Hospital.
Relatives filed a notice of claim, alerting the city of their intent to sue. They’re still demanding answers.
“There were so many discrepancies from the start that it smelled like a coverup,” Chamberlain Jr. said. “We’re not saying it’s the whole White Plains Police Department. We’re saying you have some individuals who should not be part of the Police Department.”
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