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Vol. 81/No. 5 February 6, 2017
Mother: ‘Facts show NY police killed Mohamed Bah’
Justice Committee
NEW YORK — “I was happy to get parents and families together” involved
in actions against cop brutality and killings, Hawa Bah told the
Militant Jan. 18. The “Faith Action for Mohamed Bah,” above, at the
Department of Justice offices here Jan. 12 was organized by the Justice
Committee to demand U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara prosecute the cops who
killed her son, Mohamed Bah.
On Sept. 25, 2012, Hawa Bah dialed 911 to ask for an ambulance for her
son, a student and taxi driver who was suffering from a mental
breakdown. Instead of medical personnel, five heavily armed cops
arrived. “I told them, ‘My son didn’t do anything wrong. He’s sick and
needs to go to the hospital,’” she said. They pushed past her, went up
to Bah’s apartment and shot him dead.
The original account by police spokespeople claimed Mohamed Bah had
plunged a 13-inch knife into two officers, slicing their protective
vests and prompting detective Edwin Mateo to yell, “He’s stabbing me,
shoot him.”
In November 2013 a grand jury ruled that the “use of deadly physical
force was not unlawful” in Bah’s killing. But documents showing that
Mateo later changed his story, saying that he was actually hit by a
police Taser, were kept from Bah and her attorneys. Officials say the
knife and other evidence in the case were never tested for fingerprints
and are now “contaminated” or “lost.”
In a civil lawsuit filed by Hawa Bah against the city, her attorney
Randolph McLaughlin deposed Mateo, who admitted that Bah had not stabbed
him.
— BRIAN WILLIAMS
Related articles:
UK: Hundreds protest against cop killing of Yassar Yaqub
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