68 Year Old Black Veteran Killed by Police
By Steve Kinsman, 30th Mar 2012 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutNewsCrime
Kenneth Chamberlain, a 68 year old African American veteran, was shot dead by police in his home last November.
A racially motivated killing?
The focus of the news in America lately has been on the killing of 15 year old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, and whether it was racially motivated, but there was another shooting, this time by cops, of an unarmed black person last November that bears looking into. Kenneth Chamberlain, 68, a veteran of the Vietnam War who suffers from heart disease, accidentally pushed a button while sleeping and set off his medical alert system. Police responded to the public housing complex in White Plains, New York, where Chamberlain lived shortly after 5 a. m. on November 19, 2011, and tried to gain entry. Chamberlain said from behind his closed and locked door that he set off the alarm by accident and was perfectly alright. The cops, however, demanded he let them in. Audio tape recorded at the scene reveals Chamberlain saying "Please leave me alone. I'm 68 with a heart condition. Why are you doing this to me? Can you please leave me alone?" Officers can be heard on the audio tape hurling racial slurs at Chamberlain.
The cops took Chamberlain's front door off its hinges, gained entry, tasered him, shot him with a beanbag shotgun, and then with live ammunition. In early December, Kenneth Chamberlain was buried with full military honors.
Comments
31st Mar 2012 (#)
What a way to say thanks for keeping our country safe for us.
These officers should be jailed for life no parole. A Disgrace to their uniform.
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31st Mar 2012 (#)
This kind of thing happens all too often in this country. For some reason racism is epidemic within certain police forces, and New York City's is one of the worst.
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31st Mar 2012 (#)
I agree with Mikey, Steve. I think it was racially motivated.
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31st Mar 2012 (#)
Thank you Buzz.
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13th Apr 2012 (#)
When someone uses racial slurs I think it would be obvious this was racially motivated.
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31st Mar 2012 (#)
As a Viet Nam veteran, I am reminded of the "welcome" we got when we came back. When I got back to Baltimore, my first objective was to obtain a winter coat, civilian style, so as not to travel in my long green dress winter coat - which would have stuck out like a sore thumb. I have been told that the number of veterans who returned from Viet Nam who have commited suicide has surpassed the number killed over there. Aside from the Viet Nam issue, the cops should have made sure they knew the truth and left him alone. I hope they are made to pay for their actions. Glenn
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31st Mar 2012 (#)
Thank you Glenn. I, too, remember that time. It was a disgrace the way we treated you guys. Thanks for commenting.
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31st Mar 2012 (#)
There is a cop in our hometown who shot a disabled person living in a group home. The elderly, mobility impaired, woman killed was getting out of bed. Yes, she had a knife but it would have taken her five minutes to reach the cop. The same female cop ran over a teenager, badly injuring him. She was dismissed from the force after that, but never prosecuted for either incident. I wonder if anyone is keeping any kind of statistic on unarmed and innocent people killed by our police. I am not at all anti-police and they have a difficult job, but it seems like they have so many non-lethal ways of managing people, but the first thing that comes to their minds is the gun. They feel safe behind a gun.
I can empathize with people who have guns pointed at them. When I was in Europe in the sixties in the Army I decided I wanted to go to Budapest. It was supposed to be possible for Army personnel to go their if they followed some very stringent guidelines. So I went to the border from Vienna and everything went OK until we pulled into the station at a city called Gyor. I saw a clump of police on the platform as we pulled in. I am sure I lost all color in my face and felt a chill go up the back of my neck. I had not done anything wrong but I knew these guys were for me. It was not long after we stopped that the police entered my car from both ends and were walking toward me. I was very young then and it took every ounce of restraint muster to remain very calm. I rehearsed in my head being friendly, even smiling a little, without overdoing it. They looked right at me as they approached. I felt a certain terror trying to scramble my brain, but I maintained a mild "who me?" look, without overdoing it. They stop in the aisle right next to me. Nobody spoke English but it was clear they wanted me to come with them. They had guns and they took themselves very seriously. I decided I should too. No time to joke around or talk about the kids. I calmly followed. The low ranking guys did not look down the barrel of their guns toward me but they unslung the guns and kept them pointed roughly in my direction. Both body and brain wanted to take action to get out of this situation and I was really afraid that I would inadvertently do something stupid that would start World War III. We left the train, stood on the platform for a while. We walked around to the platform for the trains going the opposite direction from the one I was on. A train came and one of the officers told me something in Hungarian that I could not understand. A younger officer came out of the station and told me in English to follow him onto the train, we were going back to the border. Not until I had talked to him for a while on the return trip did I ask if I had done something wrong. He simply said, "No". End of that conversation. At the border I was escorted to the guard shack and we said Our good byes. We did not exchange addresses. My point is that when one is taken by surprise by so much fire power and brute force the urge to defend yourself is paramount. The police have got to expect that and not assume defending yourself is tantamount to guilt.
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31st Mar 2012 (#)
Wow!~ Amos, you should have posted this comment as a story on wikinut. Please do. It's greatly worth reading. Thank you.
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2nd Apr 2012 (#)
Hello, Amos: Thank you for telling your story, which is major compared with my problem. However, you recognized the intimidation and I did too. It seemed the white policeman was hateful. Police should approach us with, "How can I help?"
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2nd Apr 2012 (#)
I know you believed me, Steve, about my incident with the police. The white policeman really made me afraid that I would go to jail as I called him, "ridiculous". In fact, the drunk in the front yard said that to me, "Ha ha, you nearly went, didn't you?"
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2nd Apr 2012 (#)
And thank you for sharing your own stories with us, Ivyevwelyn.
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