From [HERE] Kenneth Chamberlain, a 68-year-old retired Marine, was shot and killed five years ago by White Plains Officer Anthony Carelli in his apartment at 135 S. Lexington Ave. after police broke down his door to respond to his medical alert device.
Chamberlain had accidentally triggered his medical alert. His original medical alert was canceled and he repeatedly told police that he didn’t need help, but police forced their way in and shot him, a heart patient who was unarmed and in his boxer shorts. A former Marine and corrections officer, he had bipolar disorder, as well as arthritis and respiratory illness.
When the medical-alert agency did not get a response from Mr. Chamberlain, it dispatched the police to check on him. Ninety minutes later, after he had been called Nigger and taunted with racial slurs by white cops, according to an audiotape, and subdued by both a Taser weapon and beanbag rounds, he was shot and killed by a bullet from an officer’s .40-caliber pistol.
“At the end, he is saying, ‘Mr. President, I can’t hold them back; they are breaking through,’” said Debra S. Cohen, a lawyer for Mr. Chamberlain’s family, which has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of White Plains and the officer who fired the fatal shot.
Now the family of Mr. Chamberlain will have its day in federal court next week.
Mr. Chamberlain can be heard on the audiotape, made available by the medical-alert agency that recorded the encounter, telling the officers that he was all right and asking them to leave because he did not need or want their help. The agency also tried to cancel its request for a police call. But the officers insisted on checking on Mr. Chamberlain in person. Transcripts from the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office reveal that Officer Steven Hart, a white man, said to Chamberlain, “Stop, we have to talk nigger” before police broke down his door. Police officers forced their way into his apartment and fired a Taser and bean bags at Chamberlain to try to subdue him. Then they fired real bullets.
"He feared for his life," said Chamberlain's son, also named Kenneth. "He kept asking them to go away and that he didn't need their help."
Chamberlain's niece, Tonya Greenhill, was outside the door with police asking them to let her talk to her uncle instead of forcing their way in, she said. "I heard my uncle begging and pleading them to please leave him alone. I could begin to almost hear fear in his voice."
Chamberlain, a 68-year-old former Marine, had such severe respiratory problems he could not walk a flight of stairs, according to his medical records. The Life Station pendant he wore would alert their operators if he was in trouble. When it went off just before 5 a.m. that November morning, police and an ambulance were dispatched to the scene of his housing project in White Plains, north of New York City near Connecticut. A loudspeaker inside his apartment was used to try to contact him, but they got no response.
Greenhill, who lives in the building, said her uncle told them he was fine when they arrived but did not want to open the door. She said she insisted to police that they let him talk to his family but they refused.
David Chong, White Plains public safety commissioner, told reporters police force was justified because Chamberlain displayed knives when he cracked open the door to speak with officers.