The police killings of young black men continue unabated in the United States. On the evening of March 9, 2013 two undercover cops fired 11 rounds of hollow point bullets, killing Kimani Gray, a 16 year old boy in Flatbush, a community in Brooklyn. Kimani was part of a group of youngsters on their way home after a sweet sixteen birthday party.

Kimani Gray, 16, slain by New York City Police on March 9, 2013. "He was funny. And he always knew how to put a smile on my face. Anytime somebody was in a bad mood, he always knew how to make them happy." - Sidonie Smith, childhood friend.

The Killing

Witnesses deny the police claim that he had a gun, much less pointed one at them. The cops said they approached Kimani because they saw him “adjust his waistband” in “a suspicious manner.” They also claimed that they identified themselves as police and showed their badges. Witnesses at the scene say that the out-of-uniform police showed no badges, did not identify themselves and arrived in a car that was not a police car. The 2 cops say that they told Kimani not to move and he walked away from the group. The two NYC cops shot Kimani 7 times. The autopsy showed that he was shot 7 times, 4 in the front of his body and 3 times in the back apparently as he was walking away. As Kimani was dying on the street and tried to rise, one of the cops standing over him told him to stay down or that he'd shoot him again.

Tishana King, 39 year old eye witness interviewed by Village Voice says they shot Kimani again when he was down and threatened to shoot her for shouting out her window at them. Tishana is standing by her claim that the Kimani was empty-handed when he was gunned down and that one of the cops involved threatened her life, In an extended interview with the Village Voice Saturday night--one week to the day after 16-year-old Kimani Gray was killed Ms. King provided new, vivid details about the tenth-grader's final moments (excerpts of her interview):

"King said one officer stood 'right over' Gray, continuing to shoot him while he was on the ground, and that neither cop identified himself as law enforcement when the incident began. "King's account, which contradicts the NYPD's version of the events on key points, builds on what she first said in a New York Daily News article published last Tuesday. King told the paper she was 'certain [Gray] didn't have anything in his hands.' The article described a tape-recorded interview she gave to police investigators hours after the shooting. A police spokesman told the paper that when investigators asked King what she saw, she told them she couldn't see what the boys were doing 'from the angle I was at.' "But King told the Voice that from her third-floor vantage point, 'I can see everything.' A street light illuminates the area where the incident took place. "Speaking to the Voice on her stoop Saturday evening, King made her first comments on the case since NYPD responded to her claims. She confirmed that she was interviewed by police--'about two hours after' the shooting--and says she has not been interviewed by the department since. "When asked if she saw a gun at any point during the incident, King told the Voice, 'No. Not from the kids.' "King could not confirm what direction Gray was facing at the time he was shot. 'I'm not the shooter. I wouldn't be able to tell you. If I had the gun and I was shooting at him I'd be able to answer that question,' she said. King said the officers 'looked white, from what I was seeing.' 'After the gunfire subsided, King claims the officer who 'did the most shooting' put his hands on his head 'like, Oh my God.' She describes him as 'the main shooter.' " 'That's the one I was focused on,' she explained. 'He just kept shooting while [Gray] was on the ground.' When asked how close the officer was when he was shooting Gray, King said, 'right over him.' " 'I thought he was dead,' King said. That's when Gray began to scream. ''Help me. Help me. My stomach is burning. Help me. They shot me,' " she said the teen cried out. Friends have said Gray was approximately 5'6" and weighed at most about 100 pounds. King described him as 'frail' and said she was surprised he was not killed instantly. 'I didn't think anybody could take those amount of bullets,' she added " 'I just remember screaming out the window Why?! Why so much?!' King recalled. She claims the "main shooter's partner-- with the short haircut"--responded. " 'He started waving his gun up at our windows, myself and my neighbor. 'Get your F-ing head out the window before I shoot you.' " King said she and her neighbor 'jumped back.' " 'I told the authorities that,' she said. 'You threatened our lives and we didn't even do anything.' "King says a number of questions continue to bother her. 'Why did they exit their vehicles? Why were they in our neighborhood? Why were they on our block? What was the reason? Why didn't you follow protocol?' " 'The scene just keeps replaying in my head,' she told the Voice, 'over and over and over and over and over again.' "

Corporate media cover and the people's protests

Immediately following the killing of Kimani, the corporate media blanketed their newspapers and internet sites with their defense of the police and little to no sympathy for Kimani and his family. The New York Post headlined,

"BLAME KIMANI GRAY. THE COPS WERE DOING THEIR JOB."

and called Kimani "a 16­-year-­old aspiring sociopath."

Protests have continued daily since the evening Kimani was killed. Protesters chant, “How do you spell racist? and the refrain, NYPD!” and “They say get back, we say fight back!” Last Sunday afternoon the people, many from outside East Flatbush conducted another protest march in honor of Kimani near the place where he died. Again, it was surrounded by the NYPD and their barricades. The protesters said that the NYPD statement that he pointed a gun at them was all a lie. Nicholas Hayward and other eye-witnesses with Kimani told the police and the media that Kimani did not have a gun. Hayward said, "I am a hundred percent certain that Kimani Gray did not have a gun." (Kimani's mother says she's never known Kimani to have or carry a gun.) The police published a photograph of a gun saying that it "was found at the scene." We ask why they should be trusted any more than eye witnesses.

For weeks following Kimani's death the people of East Flatbush protested against the NYPD killing their children. In one protest a few angry youth broke off from the rest and ransacked a couple of stores. ABC depicted the protest as, "crowds got out of hand, looting stores, and assaulting shopkeepers." The area had been surrounded by police and their barricades and "dozens" of protestors were hauled off in handcuffs. As though not enough, the same article repeated, "a group of youths broke off, marauded through a commercial district and trashed a produce market." But according to Janell Ross, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly later admitted that the media was wrong to report the protests as riots.

An MSNBC article written by Touré Neblett was somewhat of an exception to this corporate media trash. Neblett wrote:

Moreover, the victims slain by police without cause named by Nesbitt across the United States, Amadou Diallo, Orlando Barlow, Oscar Grant, Aaron Campbell, Steven Washington and Ramarley Graham are a short list. There are many, many more over the last decade alone that could be named.

Mayor Bloomberg's Racist Stop-and-Frisk policy

Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk policy is the product of a long history of racism against Blacks and Latinos by the NYPD. In 2008, Kathy Durkin wrote for Workers World Magazine,

"At a time when more white people appear to be rejecting racism at the polls, racial profiling by police departments and other state agencies is on the rise. It is systemic and deeply entrenched in the "criminal justice system" nationwide... "In the first quarter of this year, New York City police, by their own report, stopped, questioned and/or searched 145,098 people, more than half of them African Americans. At this alarming rate, a record 600,000 people will be stopped this year. In the last two years, nearly 1 million New Yorkers were harassed by police in this manner - 90 percent of them people of color. That's 1,300 a day. And it's legally allowed. These operations, just in the past two years, have put more than 1 million innocent people, mostly African-American and Latinos into the huge police database; they are subject to future criminal investigations merely by their inclusion there.

On March 17 hundreds of people attended Kimani's funeral in East Flatbush. Jose LaSalle, an activist was in attendance with a small group who keep vigil at the spot where Gray was shot. He thought of his own teenage son, 15 years old who in 2011 was "stopped and frisked" in East Harlem. In a federal court case challenging the constitutionality of Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk policy, a radio recording of that event is slated to be introduced into evidence this month. The police radio recording has one of the cops who shook down LaSalle's son, calling the boy "a mutt." On Sunday, LaSalle explained,

"A mutt, like a mixed breed dog ... like Spanish people, you know because of our mixed heritage, are not even full human beings. That's what boys like my son, parents like me face if we are lucky. My son is alive."

Among the eulogies spoken for Kimani, Sidonie Smith, a childhood friend described the boy, "He was funny. And he always knew how to put a smile on my face. Anytime somebody was in a bad mood, he always knew how to make them happy." Kimani "loved the power of words" and described himself as a writer and was working on a drama for theatre at the time of his death. During the week he traveled more than an hour each day to his high school in Manhattan. He loved Chinese food, the TV show, "Supernatural," and the music of Chief Keef, a teenage rapper.

Losing composure, Kimani's father ran from the church when the people began singing, "Amazing Grace" and his mother, Carol Gray threw herself across his coffin, begged "Kimani, please don't go!" and asked the people to help her get her son up at the wake. Last week she told NY Amsterdam News,

“I just sit in my living room. I won’t go to bed ... just waiting and hoping the bell would ring, and trying not to fall asleep—just hoping Kimani is trying to come home.... He wanted to get his high school diploma. They have taken that away from him…Everyone in my house is frustrated—that takes away from the grieving sometimes.”

Conclusion

The two NYPD police officers who killed Kimani have been sued for civil rights violations in the past according to the NY Daily News. The city has paid $215,000 to settle three lawsuits against Sgt. Mourad and two against officer Jovaniel Cordova according to court records. Sgt. Mourad was sued 3 times while he was a plainclothes cop on Staten Island, and Officer Jovaniel Cordova twice at Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct — all charging him with civil rights violations including illegal stop and search and false arrest. Later prosecutors dismissed all but one of the arrests against the police, and the criminal cases were sealed. Those settlements ranged from $20,000 to $92,500, with no admission of any wrongdoing by the city. Both cops were placed on administrative leave with pay after they killed Kimani Gray.

Neither Police Commissioner Kelly nor New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg attended the funeral. Instead, the NYPD surrounded the funeral with a massive display of power. Earlier, Kimani's mother rightly rejected Mayor Bloomberg who asked to meet with her to express his "sadness." Only after hypocrite Bloomberg experiences an awakening to conscience himself, begins to clean up the corruption in his own police department, reverses his "stop & frisk" policy and thoroughly investigates these police who shoot with their license to kill, perhaps the people will be willing to listen to his hollow words. Meanwhile, we won't hold our breath. As said of the scorpion that killed the frog who was giving him a ride across the river, "It's in his nature."

Epilogue: Eye witness testimony against the police will be discarded by the NYPD, the courts and the corporate media, giving all credibility to the words of the killers. Demands for an independent investigation will be ignored. Expensive lawsuits will be dismissed by the state prosecutors.