- Police Brutality Watch

Last week we called into question the NYPD's decision to declare the shooting of 18-year-old Queens deli clerk Manuel Chametta a "freak accident" and leave it at that. Chametta, as you probably remember, was shot and killed by retired police officer John Malik, who claims he was reaching for his beeper, knocked his gun loose and, when reaching to recover it, accidentally fired one bullet into Chametta's chest. That he wasn't taken into custody as a simple matter of procedure afterwards, and that there was no serious investigation planned into the shooting struck us as awfully peculiar at best. Again, not to imply guilt or intent on his part, but had this happened to any civilian, he or she would have been arrested and an investigation would have followed--no matter how clear-cut things seemed. And this case was far from clear-cut. It seems a few more people came to that conclusion last week, too. Chametta's father grew more adamant about the peculiarities of the case, with both Malik's and almost-witness Felipe Santiago Villares' stories changing, and a city councilman demanded that the Queens DA's office arrest Malik and conduct a real investigation. Yet for all the coverage, all the calls for this and that, all the arguments from both sides, it seems strange that still no one has even mentioned the deli's security cameras. The shooting took place at the front counter. Any security cameras in the shop would have been pointed at the front counter. The tape from that evening would quickly and clearly resolve this whole issue once and for all--so why isn't it being done? Or is the Astoria Food Mart the only deli in the city that doesn't have security cameras? [more]