Mother of slain Brooklyn teen, Kimani Gray, calls for details of shooting and end to police violence

In New York, residents of East Flatbush, Brooklyn continue to call for more information after the shooting death of 16-year-old Kimani Gray by police officers last Saturday night. Police say Gray was armed with a revolver and refused to heed calls to freeze from plainclothes officers, but an eyewitness account and an autopsy report made public this week appear to contradict that account. Police have made arrests and clashed with protesters several times this week. On Thursday, Kimani Gray’s mother, Carol Gray, told FSRN that she was demanding to know the details of the fatal shooting.

“I came out today on Kimani’s strength and all the kids that lose their life to police officers. Not only just lose their life, beatings, brutality, wrongfully arrested, you know, just for being a young black kid out there with his pants sagging and past his curfew hours.”

Carol Gray said police treatment of youth is a serious concern for other parents in her community.

“We all got to join hands and do something about it before someone else gets hurt, some other young kid gets torn and dragged through the mud and lose the dignity of who they are as young black kids and being labeled as gang members and not as what their parents bring them on Earth to be. We make our children but we don’t make their minds.”

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said after the shooting that police interviewed two witnesses who said they heard officers tell Gray not to move. But the city released an autopsy report Wednesday that showed that Gray was hit by seven bullets, three that entered his body from the back. An eyewitness, Tishana King, told the New York Daily News that she viewed the shooting from her apartment last Saturday and that she was “certain he [Gray] didn’t have anything in his hands” when police opened fire. King said she was interviewed by police after the shooting. Brooklyn Councilmember Charles Barron said the killing of Gray is just the latest in a series of fatal shootings by the New York police which has led to deep frustration and anger in the community.

“As a community whose frustration and anger has been pent up after 41 bullets with Amadou Diallo, a stick up our rectum with Abner Louima, 50 bullets for Sean Bell, a bullet in the heart for little Timothy Standsbury all unarmed and doing nothing wrong, breaking no laws, this is a community who has a lot of pent up frustration and there is a powder keg going on here. So if we want to talk about peace and stopping the violence? Tell the police to stop the police violence. We want justice. Justice stops violence. Justice.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has promised a full investigation, but residents vow to continue rallying until more is done to stop police violence in their communities.