For immediate release: January 19, 2017
Contact: Mandela Jones press@changethenypd.org

5 FACTS ON RAMARLEY GRAHAM’S KILLING BY NYPD OFFICERS BEING OBSCURED AT TRIAL TO NOT GET WRONG

 

1. RAMARLEY WAS UNARMED

All Ramarley did was pull up his pants while walking with his friends. It was the biased-based, discriminatory profiling of the NYPD officers involved that created a contrary perception of the 18-year-old teenager, who was walking with friends within his own neighborhood. If the officers were so sure he was armed, why didn’t they stop-and-frisk him on the street for a weapon while he was calmly walking home?

2. RAMARLEY WAS NOT A “DRUG SUSPECT” & THIS WAS NOT A “DRUG BUST” 

Ramarley Graham was not a drug suspect and his killing did not occur during a drug bust. The officers who killed him were in a police unit focused on narcotics, but they followed Ramarley because members of the unit claimed, incorrectly, that he had a gun.

3. RAMARLEY DID NOT RUN FROM THE NYPD – THIS WAS NO CHASE OR “HOT PURSUIT”

There is no evidence that Ramarley ran from the police, as the “chase” narrative that the NYPD initially disseminated and never retracted suggests. In fact, objective video surveillance outside of Ramarley’s home (link below and available upon request) shows him walking up to the door and entering. Haste was the one running, coming up to the door and making multiple attempts to kick in the door. This chase narrative that suggests Ramarley ran from police is a remnant of the initial claims by NYPD – the department also initially claimed that there was a struggle within the house between Ramarley and Officer Haste that preceded the shooting. They retracted that once it became clear a witness, Graham’s grandmother, would contradict such a claim. It’s likely that Ramarley never knew he was being watched and followed by police.

4. OFFICERS DIDN’T SIMPLY ENTER THE HOME, THEY FORCIBLY ENTERED & BROKE THROUGH A DOOR WITHOUT A WARRANT AND AGAINST NYPD PROTOCOLS

Haste didn’t immediately follow Graham into the home unimpeded and were not let in with free consent. Surveillance video from outside of the home shows Haste running up to the door, which is locked, and making several attempts to kick it down with his gun drawn. There was no knocking or requesting access, as the NYPD initially claimed but never retracted as being false. Several minutes passed with officers pacing outside of the home with their guns drawn, providing an opportunity for a reassessment or intervention by one of the officers. None of this happens, and they finally enter the building through the back after confronting the 8-year-old child of a tenant from a different unit with their guns drawn. Officers then kicked through the locked door of the family’s apartment on the second floor, against NYPD protocol and without calling for Emergency Services Unit.

5. CLAIMS ABOUT WAISTBAND & ORDERS TO SEE HANDS ARE UNVERIFIED

The claims made by Richard Haste and the NYPD that Ramarley was ordered to show his hands or that he reached into his waistband are unverified, one-sided claims without any objective substantiating evidence and remain in dispute by Ramarley’s grandmother. They should be described and treated as such – the accounts of Haste and the NYPD and not objective fact. The NYPD’s record of truthfulness in its accounts of this incident – specifically their false initial claims that a struggle ensued between Haste and Graham, Ramarley was running, among other things – must also be considered in weighing their credibility.

 

BACKGROUND LINKS:

 

Contact: Mandela Jones, 646-214-1031, press [at] changethenypd.org.

 

Topics: Ramarley Graham