Vol. 81/No. 6 February 13, 2017
After 5 years, NYPD tries cop who killed
Ramarley Graham
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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