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.