'When a [white] cop breaks into a [black person's] home without a warrant, when we aren't safe in our own home, where are we safe?' - NYC Settles Ramarley Graham Wrongful Death Case for $3.9 Million

White media [NY Times, CBS and Fox] omits [controls your discourse] from its racist coverage that video surveillance contradicted NYPD lies about Ramarley running into house, that he was shot to death in front of his 6 year old brother and grandmother and that psychopathic white cops laughed about the murder in front of his mother and cheered on the white cop at his arraignment.  

The City of New York on Friday agreed to pay $3.9 million to the family of Ramarley Graham, a black Bronx teenager shot to death by a white police officer in 2012. The deal settled a federal lawsuit brought by the family of the 18-year-old Graham.

“This was a tragic case,” said New York City Law Department spokesman Nicholas Paolucci. “After evaluating all the facts, and consulting with key stakeholders such as the NYPD, it was determined that settling the matter was in the best interest of the city.”

The NYPD claims officers saw Ramarley with a gun in his waistband and ran after him when he took off. Surveillance video, however, shows the teen calmly walking into his building— followed by cops rushing the door and breaking it down -- without a warrant. A bag of marijuana was recovered in the bathroom.

Officer Richard Haste pursued Graham into his bathroom on the second floor of the building and shot Graham once in the chest as his 6-year-old brother and elderly grandmother looked on. [MORE]

Although Haste fired the fatal bullet after cornering the teen in the bathroom of the second-floor apartment, the family said the shooting wasn’t a solo operation. “There were many officers involved, but none of them were ever charged, including supervisors who should have known better,” Graham’s mother, Constance Malcolm said.

Haste said he fired his weapon because he thought he was going to be shot. No weapons were ever found. After the incident, Assistant district attorney Donald Levin described a scene in which Graham stared down the barrel of Haste's gun with no means to escape.

"Once this officer gained entry", Levin said, "he stood face to face with Ramarley Graham.

"Ramarley Graham was in the bathroom with absolutely nowhere to go," Levin said. "Officer Haste consciously and deliberately pulled the trigger."

He added that the case is "not about what he was told out on the street by his fellow officers", Levin said, challenging claims that Graham's death was the unfortunate consequence of bad information. [MORE]

“When a cop breaks into a home without a warrant, when we are not safe in our home, where are we safe?” Malcolm asked.

She described how she learned her son was dead: overhearing a cop talk about the “homicide” on E. 229th St. while she sat on a bench in the stationhouse waiting for information.

“I just froze,” she said, claiming that she heard officers laughing.

“They thought it was a joke. Just like at the arraignment,” she said, referring to cops who cheered Haste at Wednesday’s court appearance. [MORE]

Haste was indicted on manslaughter charges in the summer of 2012, but charges were dismissed by a judge who said prosecutors improperly instructed grand jurors to imply they should disregard testimony from police officers that they radioed Haste in advance to warn him that they thought Graham had a pistol. It took four months for Bronx prosecutors to obtain an indictment. A second grand jury declined to re-indict the officer.

Manhattan federal prosecutors are conducting a civil rights investigation. [dont hold your breath in system of racism]