Another police officer has gotten away with killing an unarmed Black teenager. In 2012, NYPD officer Richard Haste and other officers profiled Ramarley Graham while he was at a New York bodega.
They claimed that they thought he had a gun. When they followed him, they also claimed that he ran from them. However, a surveillance camera revealed that Graham was walking, not running, when police followed him into his home.
The officers then attempted to kick down the door of Graham’s apartment building and enter without a search warrant. They failed and went to the back where they were let in by another tenant. Once at Graham’s grandmother’s apartment, they kicked down the door and rushed in with guns drawn. They ran after Graham who attempted to flush a small bag of marijuana down the toilet.
Officer Haste followed Graham into the bathroom and yelled, “Gun,” before shooting Graham at point-blank range. Graham died on the scene after being shot in the chest. But it was discovered that Graham never had a gun and Haste murdered him in cold blood. Haste was charged with manslaughter, but charges were dropped due to an error by the prosecution.
Graham’s family received another slap in the face when Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara failed to file additional charges or bring a grand jury against Haste. Stating that Haste had reason to believe that Graham was reaching for a gun excludes him from being responsible for violating his rights.
It’s another case of how the law has been misused to work against Blacks in America. Haste and the other officers never had a reason to follow Graham because there was no clear evidence of a crime. And once they entered his home without a search warrant, it proved that they were looking for trouble instead of keeping a community safe. Haste never gave Graham the opportunity to respond. Instead, he killed a teenager whose only crime was holding a small bag of marijuana and being poor and Black in America.
Graham’s family was distraught by the verdict. If there are laws that allow police to kill without repercussion, those laws must be reviewed and changed. Too many police in America are walking free after murdering Black people who were never threats to public safety.
Rev. Al Sharpton has called for the officers involved to be fired.
