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Vol. 81/No. 6 February 13, 2017
After 5 years, NYPD tries cop who killed
Ramarley Graham
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Five years after police officer Richard Haste killed Black teenager
Ramarley Graham in the youth’s apartment, the New York Police Department
finally got around to holding a disciplinary trial Jan. 17-23 to
determine whether Haste should be punished for his actions.
The proceedings at NYPD headquarters were open to the public. Ramarley
Graham’s family and supporters packed the courtroom, calling for Haste
to be fired. The decision will ultimately rest with Police Commissioner
James O’Neill, and it won’t be known for weeks.
“I’m not going to stop fighting. My purpose is to make sure Richard
Haste is fired,” Constance Malcolm, mother of Ramarley Graham, told
supporters and the media outside NYPD headquarters Jan. 17. “This man
murdered my son for no reason. He broke into my home.”
On Feb. 2, 2012, Haste shot and killed Graham, 18, at close range in the
bathroom of his house in the Wakefield neighborhood of the Bronx. Cops
forced themselves into the Graham family’s house by breaking down the
second-floor back door. They claimed Graham had a gun. But now they
admit he didn’t.
In the public hearing, Haste gave his first public explanation for what
happened. He insisted he acted flawlessly.
“We all know that Haste lied,” Malcolm told the Militant in a phone
interview Jan. 31.
Graham’s 6-year-old brother and his grandmother Patricia Hartley were in
the apartment when he was killed. Hartley said Haste threatened her as
she tried to help her grandson after the shooting. “He tried to choke me
and take away the phone from me and tell me he will f----g shoot me
too,” she told the New York Daily News.
Several months later Haste was charged with first- and second-degree
manslaughter. But the criminal case was dismissed on a technicality. A
new grand jury was empaneled, but declined to indict Haste. In 2015
federal prosecutors also refused to file any charges.
Since the killing Haste has been on an NYPD desk job, with pay. “The
main thing is that Richard Haste and all the officers involved in the
killing of my son should be fired,” Malcolm said. “Only Haste was tried,
but there are two other officers in the department who should also be
tried.
A rally marking the fifth anniversary of Graham’s death, demanding Mayor
Bill de Blasio fire these cops, will take place Feb. 2 at Foley Square
in Manhattan from 5 to 8 p.m.
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