Richard Haste, the NYPD officer who chased unarmed black teen Ramarley Graham into his Bronx home and shot him fatally, resigned from the department Sunday after he was found guilty of poor tactical judgment in a disciplinary review and recommended for dismissal.
Haste shot Graham in his bathroom five years ago in front of his grandmother and 6-year-old brother as part of a drug investigation, ABC-7 News reported. The Department Trial Commissioner found that Haste failed to take obvious steps to diffuse the situation before shooting Graham.
The officer had faced a criminal manslaughter charge for the shooting, but a procedural error forced prosecutors to dismiss the case, ABC-7 reported. A subsequent grand jury failed to indict Haste, and federal prosecutors then declined to charge him. A wrongful death lawsuit against the city was settled for $3.9 million.
Department prosecutors said that when Graham ran into his apartment and locked the door, officers should have retreated, set up a perimeter, and called for backup, The New York Times reported. Instead, Haste and two other officers barged into the apartment, where Haste shot Graham.
In a statement, Graham’s mother Constance Malcom blasted the department and Mayor Bill de Blasio for allowing Haste to resign and for the other officers involved to escape facing any charges.
“There’s no way a cop should break into your home, kill an unarmed person, and walk free, let alone get a pay raise every year from the time he killed my son, and overtime,” Malcom said. “…Mayor de Blasio, you show us again, time and time after again, that black lives don’t matter to you,” ABC-7 reported her as saying.
Many on Twitter agreed with Malcom that allowing Haste to resign was letting him off too easily.
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