NYC Police Applaud the Killing of Unarmed Youth

Our city's disgust with the behavior and practices of police officers in our city reached new levels as our city's police force engaged in a thoroughly horrifying standing ovation for the killer of an unarmed Bronx youth.

Ramarley Graham

The unarmed young man, who lost his life because our city's police are seeking to subdue and eliminate black residents rather than protect us, was named Ramarley Graham. He died in his own bathroom when he was shot by an NYPD officer who had stormed into the building by ordering other residents, at gun point, to step aside and let him in.

Footage from private surveillance cameras shows Graham walking into his grandmother's apartment building, a three-story home on a residential street.
Police officers, guns drawn, quickly follow and attempt to kick down the front door after finding it locked. In the back of the building, other officers swarm in through a rear apartment. The cameras do not capture what transpired inside, but officers quickly entered Graham's grandmother's apartment on the second floor. They did not have a search warrant.
The large number of officers at the house indicated that Graham wasn't likely to escape and that officers could have waited to obtain a warrant before storming the apartment.

Graham's death has resulted in a civil case against the NYPD by his family and neighbors. In a sign of how the NYPD treats its law-abiding citizenry, the landlord was abused after Graham was killed.

The gunshots brought the landlady, Paulet Minzie, 55, out of the shower and down the stairs from the third floor, with only a towel covering her below the waist, the court papers say.
“Police screamed at her causing great alarm,” the notice says. “Ms. Minzie immediately retreated up the stairs toward her apartment, trailed by the two officers who had just been searching for (and killed) Ramarley Graham.
As Ms. Minzie reached the threshold of her apartment door, police ordered her to put her hands up and put a gun to her head,” the papers say. One officer kept the gun to her head until she told him there were surveillance cameras operating, she alleged.
“[He\] immediately lowered his weapon. His demeanor completely changed, and he alerted his colleague that they may be on camera,” the papers say.

Cheering the Killing of Unarmed Black Youth

 

NYPD Officer Richard Haste killed Ramarley Graham. After he entered a not-guilty plea in a Bronx court, he was given a loud standing ovation by members of the NYPD.

 

The next time that the Mayor claims that the killings and abuse of people of color in our city at the hands of the NYPD is a coincidence, I want him to be reminded that no one has ever cheered a cop killer. The cops, when they are the murders, cheer the murder. Officers who have shot unarmed Black youth in the back have been named "officer of the month" and have had both their bail and their legal expenses paid for by the police union.

We need the Bloomberg years to end today. Too many deaths. Too much abuse. Bull Connor is not a good model for a NYC Mayor. Let's turn the page and end the Apartheid era in NYC.