Local Organization Rallies For Police Accountability

The Westchester Coalition for Police Reform and Network for Accountability and Reform hosted a town hall meeting Saturday at the Mount Hope AME Zion Church in White Plains to talk about issues with local police, specifically around the killing of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. in his White Plains apartment in 2011.

“My last vision of my father is looking at him in the emergency room with his eyes wide open, tongue hanging out of his mouth and a bullet hole in him,” said Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., son of the 68-year-old victim. “This is one of the memories and one of the visions that I think about on a day-to-day basis.”

Chamberlain Jr. spoke passionately to a packed church crowd of 250-plus, who he called “soldiers” in the fight for accountability for police officers.

“If god gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers, well then, allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “My name is general Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. and together we will fight for accountability. We will fight for justice, and we will be the voices for those who have no voice.”

In his father’s case, Chamberlain went over some issues he and his family has in the handling of the investigation. He said Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore promised a full and fair investigation, but noted that she was endorsed for reelection by the the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police and Westchester County Chiefs of Police Associations.

“Then, you have the police department investigating its own officers, and then you have that same DA’s office working closely with that police department on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “Conflict of interest all the way around the board. You cannot do that and expect that there’s going to be a full and fair investigation.”

Chamberlain was one of many speakers on Saturday, including Dr. Cornel West, a national commenter and philosopher. Other speakers included White Plains Police Officer Michael Hannon, who alleges that Assistant Police Chief Anne FitzSimmons assaulted and impaired him, Damon K. Jones, a New York representative for Blacks in Law Enforcement of America and  Randolph McLaughlin and Mayo Bartlett, attorneys for the Chamberlain family in their federal lawsuit for wrongful death. A late addition to the town hall was Yusef Salaam, who was wrongfully incarcerated as a member of the “Central Park Five” convicted in 1990 of severely beating and raping a woman. The group was recently featured in a PBS documentary by Ken Burns.

West told the crowd that the residents of White Plains need to look out for themselves.

“We’re gonna die soon, so the question is what kind of person you gonna be from between your momma’s womb and the tomb?” he said. “That’s the question of every citizen in White Plains.”

He added that the people of White Plains need to take a stand.

“Straighten your back up. Quite walking around hunched over,” he said. “Oh yes. Folk can only ride your back when it’s bent. But when you straighten up the way Sly Stone said straighten up in “Stand!,” ‘in the end you’ll still be you, one that's done all the things you set out to do.’”

West also said it’s important to not forget the history of the country while advocating for change.

“We believe that every person has the same significance and the same value as any other person, and we know the history of this nation with a vicious legacy of white supremacy is one that black human beings don’t have the same value as other human beings, especially on the vanilla side of town,” he said. “And we want to be honest about that, but we can say it in such a way that it doesn’t degenerate into hatred. We know that hatred is a coward’s revenge against those who intimidate them. We don’t want to be cowardly. We are courageous.”

Jones touched on a similar point, noting he feels there’s a underlying current of racism in the local police, and that’s something that needs to be discussed.

“Nothing has changed today. Those same laws that they used to find slaves they use today in what they call stop-and-frisk. It’s the same thing. It hasn’t changed, just the players,” Jones said. “We must, as a community, come together and ask for fair dealing. We’re not asking for special treatment in the law. No, we’re asking for fair dealing because we have seen that they have two separate rules: the rules for the poor and the rules for the rich, the rules for the black and the rules for the white.”

Both Chamberlain and McLaughlin talked about the audio recordings of right before Chamberlain Sr. was killed, with McLaughlin talking about the use of a racial slur by police officers on a man they were supposed to be policing.

“That’s racism,” McLaughlin said. “You can’t cut that any other way.”

Chamberlain Jr. said that in the audio you can hear mocking and taunting, and called it “terroristic threats” by the police.

“Terrorism is a tactic that’s used to instill fear, and that’s what they did to my father,” he said. “I’m 46-years-old and in my 46 years I never heard my father ever speak in fear until I heard him on that audio.”

Chamberlain also noted that it took more than five months before the city and elected officials offered condolences to his family, and that only came after he made mention of that to the media.

Hannon said he feels elected officials have been neglectful of issues concerning the police department.

“To the residents of White Plains I say, having served you for 14 years, my sentiment is that your police department is in need of major overhaul and reform. And reform must start at the top,” he said. “Neither [White Plains] Mayor [Thomas] Roach nor his council seems to be concerned with many lawsuits against the city’s police department, which allege racism and misconduct. The very fact that there are police officers suing the White Plains Police alleging the same misconduct by the administration should cause you great alarm.”

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