Man's Life-Alert pendant goes off; gets shot after telling police to leave him alone
113 replies, posted
[quote=NYTimes.com]The niece stood in the darkened stairwell of the Winbrook Houses, listening, as 20 feet away five police officers yelled at her uncle, who had locked himself in his apartment.
It was 5:25 on a chill November morning. The officers banged loud and hard, demanding that her 68-year-old uncle open his door.
“He was begging them to leave him alone,” she recalls. “He sounded scared.” She pulls her shawl about her shoulders and her voice cracks; she is speaking for the first time about what she saw. “I heard my uncle yelling, ‘Officers, officers, why do you have your guns out?’ ”
The string of events that night sounds prosaic, a who-cares accumulation of little mistakes and misapprehensions. Cumulatively, though, it is like tumbling down the stairs. Somehow the uncle, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., a former Marine who had heart problems and wheezed if he walked more than 40 feet, triggered his Life Alert pendant. The Life Alert operator came on the loudspeaker in his one-bedroom apartment, asking: “Mr. Chamberlain, are you O.K.?” All of this is recorded.
Mr. Chamberlain didn’t respond. So the operator signaled for an ambulance. Police patrol cars fell in behind — standard operating procedure in towns across America. Except an hour later, even as Mr. Chamberlain insisted he was in good health, the police had snapped the locks on the apartment door.
They fired electric charges from Tasers, and beanbags from shotguns. Then they said they saw Mr. Chamberlain grab a knife, and an officer fired his handgun.
Boom! Boom! Mr. Chamberlain’s niece Tonyia Greenhill, who lives upstairs, recalls the echoes ricocheting about the hall. She pushed out a back door and ran into the darkness beneath overarching oaks. He lay on the floor near his kitchen, two bullet holes in his chest, blood pooling thick, dying.
It makes sense to be humble in the presence of conflicting accounts. The White Plains public safety commissioner declared this a “warranted use of deadly force”; the shooter was later put on modified assignment. [B]Mr. Chamberlain, in the commissioner’s telling, had withstood electric charges, grabbed a butcher knife and charged the officers.[/B]
The Life Alert phone in Mr. Chamberlain’s apartment recorded most of the standoff, as did a security camera in the hall. And the officers’ Tasers carried video recorders.
Last month, the Westchester County district attorney played these for the dead man’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., who teaches martial arts for a local nonprofit organization and intends to file a lawsuit. He is lithe, with a shaved head, and takes pride in a reasoned manner. “My family, we’re not into histrionics,” he says. “We don’t run down the street inciting riot.”
His voice cracks, though, as he describes the tapes. “I heard fear,” he says. “In my 45 years on this earth, I never heard my father sound like that.”
The district attorney will present the case to a grand jury and has not released transcripts. But the family’s recollection matches that of neighbors who listened through closed doors.
They say officers taunted Mr. Chamberlain. He shouted: “Semper fi,” the Marine Corps motto. The police answered with loud shouts of “Hoo-rah!” Another officer, the niece says, said he wanted to pee in Mr. Chamberlain’s bathroom.
Someone, the niece and neighbors say, yelled a racial epithet at the door. Black and white officers were present.
Kenny Randolph listened from his apartment across the hall. “They put fear in his heart,” he says. “It wasn’t a crime scene until they made it one.”
The police say Mr. Chamberlain was “known” to them, although it appears he had not been convicted of a crime. There are intimations that he wrestled with emotional issues. Sometimes, neighbors say, he talked to himself. Who’s to say? As often, life’s default position is set to “complicated.”
Many police departments have trained corps of officers expert in talking with the emotionally upset. Their rule of thumb: talk quietly and de-escalate. That night in White Plains, no one appeared to have de-escalated anything.
Mr. Chamberlain sounded spooked. His son recalls hearing his father say on tape: “This is my sworn testimony. White Plains officers are coming in here to kill me.” A few minutes later, a bullet tore through his rib and heart. The ambulance took him to White Plains Hospital, where he soon died.
His son lives five minutes away. He says he could have talked his father down. Standing in the office of his lawyer Randolph M. McLaughlin, he mimes knocking on his dad’s door. “Dad, it’s me, Ken, I’m here.” His eyes are bloodshot and brimming. “I always said, ‘I’m the protector now.’ But I wasn’t there when he needed me.”[/quote]
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/nyregion/fatal-shooting-of-ex-marine-by-white-plains-police-raises-questions.html?_r=3]SOURCE[/url]
He [I]allegedly[/I] grabbed a knife, though he'd been tazed immediately beforehand.
...why did they taze a guy who they [I]knew[/I] had heart problems?
why did the police go to his apartment? because he locked it?
Misleading title..
[QUOTE=muesli23;35040069]why did the police go to his apartment? because he locked it?[/QUOTE]
[quote]Somehow the uncle, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., a former Marine who had heart problems and wheezed if he walked more than 40 feet, triggered his Life Alert pendant. The Life Alert operator came on the loudspeaker in his one-bedroom apartment, asking: “Mr. Chamberlain, are you O.K.?” All of this is recorded.
Mr. Chamberlain didn’t respond. So the operator signaled for an ambulance. Police patrol cars fell in behind — standard operating procedure in towns across America.[/quote]
thanks. what a tragedy
Extremely misleading title.
[quote]Mr. Chamberlain, in the commissioner’s telling, had withstood electric charges, grabbed a butcher knife and charged the officers.
[/quote]
Yeah, not really something I can defend.
Withstood electric charges?
I thought those things were made so you wouldn't be able to move after being shot by one.
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;35040178]Yeah, not really something I can defend.[/QUOTE]
Surely if you're being attacked you should defend yourself, even if it is police. If I was being tased when I thought I was doing nothing wrong I wouldn't just take it.
[QUOTE=booster;35040256]Withstood electric charges?
I thought those things were made so you wouldn't be able to move after being shot by one.[/QUOTE]
Maybe he was wearing thick clothing that didn't let the tazer's needle reach the skin?
Maybe he was using one of those incredibly thick robes.
He says he's okay, the officers insist on coming in, get aggressive about it, start shooting tasers. He gets the idea they're trying to attack him for no reason, he grabs a knife to defend himself.
What's so hard to understand? You think because he grabbed a knife that immediately invalidates any sense of idiocy in what these officers did?
If he was fine he should've opened the door and talked to the officers. For all they knew someone had broken into the place and killed the man who called life alert.
[QUOTE=Andokool12;35040344]He says he's okay, the officers insist on coming in, get aggressive about it, start shooting tasers. He gets the idea they're trying to attack him for no reason, he grabs a knife to defend himself.
What's so hard to understand? You think because he grabbed a knife that immediately invalidates any sense of idiocy in what these officers did?[/QUOTE]
Besides, the man is fucking 68. Just tell him logical paradoxes and his brain will shut down, he's not exactly the Incredible Hulk.
[QUOTE=HammerBrute;35040322]Surely if you're being attacked you should defend yourself, even if it is police. If I was being tased when I thought I was doing nothing wrong I wouldn't just take it.[/QUOTE]
You've tazed a guy who's now charging at you with a large knife. Frankly, there's only really one option.
Well he was afraid an' shit; was there really any reason to shoot him at all? No, there was no reason.
Why did the officers start firing tasers?
[QUOTE=Andokool12;35040344]He says he's okay, the officers insist on coming in, get aggressive about it, start shooting tasers. He gets the idea they're trying to attack him for no reason, he grabs a knife to defend himself.
What's so hard to understand? You think because he grabbed a knife that immediately invalidates any sense of idiocy in what these officers did?[/QUOTE]
He was called when his device declared problems, he didn't answer the call, the police were sent to his place, when they get there they hear someone say everything is fine but they don't know who it is because he doesn't open the door.
What would you assume, that everything is really fine or that someone killed him and is now trying to pretend to be the home-owner?
It seems ex-marines are often getting shot by Police.
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;35040410]You've tazed a guy who's now charging at you with a large knife. Frankly, there's only really one option.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, after tazing someone for no reason you've just got to kill him if he decides to defend himself. No other choice.
[QUOTE=Metanar;35040452]Yeah, after tazing someone for no reason you've just got to kill him if he decides to defend himself. No other choice.[/QUOTE]
Charging you with a knife is a life-threatening situation so they were allowed to open fire. Self-defense or not, the cops weren't going to let themselves risk getting stabbed.
Yeah, why did they fire tasers? It said he grabbed the knife after they were fired. If someone tried to attack me and failed, I would no doubt have done something similar.
[QUOTE=Electrocuter;35040524]Charging you with a knife is a life-threatening situation so they were allowed to open fire. Self-defense or not, the cops weren't going to let themselves risk getting stabbed.[/QUOTE]
Being tazed repeatedly by police with dubious intentions is a life-threatening situation in which a person should defend themselves. Don't try to pin the blame to this guy.
This is a really sad story, and it's undeniably a terrible thing, but that's probably the most sensationalist and in-objectively written news article I've ever read. Is the NY Times always this bad?
[QUOTE=Metanar;35040562]Being tazed repeatedly by police with dubious intentions is a life-threatening situation in which a person should defend themselves. Don't try to pin the blame to this guy.[/QUOTE]
Nor should you try to pin the blame entirely on the police.
[QUOTE=ZF911;35040393]If he was fine he should've opened the door and talked to the officers. For all they knew someone had broken into the place and killed the man who called life alert.[/QUOTE]
[quote]They say officers taunted Mr. Chamberlain. He shouted: “Semper fi,” the Marine Corps motto. The police answered with loud shouts of “Hoo-rah!” Another officer, the niece says, said he wanted to pee in Mr. Chamberlain’s bathroom.
Someone, the niece and neighbors say, yelled a racial epithet at the door. Black and white officers were present.[/quote]
They were scaring him on purpose.
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;35040642]Nor should you try to pin the blame entirely on the police.[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry that I can't see a single damn thing that this guy did wrong here. Seems to be the blame is entirely on the police.
[editline]7th March 2012[/editline]
These guys who have barged into my house and started tazing me clearly know what's best for me.
Why shoot him in the heart though?
[QUOTE=booster;35040775]Why shoot him in the heart though?[/QUOTE]
Bad luck. When someone's charging at you with a close-range weapon, you don't really have a lot of time to aim carefully for a spot that is most likely nonlethal so the most likely option is just shooting somewhere in the general direction your enemy is.
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;35040410]You've tazed a guy who's now charging at you with a large knife. Frankly, there's only really one option.[/QUOTE]
I have a crazy ideas, why don't cops stop trying overpower everyone they see?
[editline]7th March 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Electrocuter;35040524]Charging you with a knife is a life-threatening situation so they were allowed to open fire. Self-defense or not, the cops weren't going to let themselves risk getting stabbed.[/QUOTE]
Don't put yourself in that situation then, simple.
And tasing someone with a heart problem is an even MORE life-threatening situation.
this shit happens [i]way[/i] too often
it seems like every other day someone's getting killed or severely injured or just generally fucked over by the police, and I know people make mistakes, and I know most police officers are ok, but christ.
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