A group of New Yorkers rallied in front of City Hall on Tuesday and delivered nearly 60,000 petitions to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office demanding a full investigation into the death of Ramarley Graham.
Graham’s mother, Constance Malcolm, personally delivered the petitions to City Hall and requested a meeting with de Blasio, but was told that the mayor was unavailable.
Tuesday would have been Graham’s 23rd birthday.
“As I’m forced to spend a fifth birthday without my son, none of the officers responsible for his killing or other misconduct against our family have been held accountable,” Malcolm said. “My son was killed for no reason, by the same people he was always taught to respect.”
In 2012, Graham was fatally shot in the bathroom of his apartment by an on duty NYPD officer, Richard Haste, who mistakenly believed Graham had a gun. Haste was not indicted for the incident and in March of this year he was was cleared of federal civil rights charges.
A spokesperson for Mayor de Blasio told amNewYork that the city is in the process of internal discipline for the involved officer and it would be inappropriate to meet during the process.
“The death of Ramarley Graham was a tragedy, and our heart breaks for the family of Mr. Graham. Now that the federal announcement has been made, NYPD is proceeding with their internal disciplinary process,” the spokesperson said.
City Council member Andy King, who represents a district in the Bronx, also spoke at the rally and delivered the petitions together with Malcolm. King told the crowd that the Graham family’s rights were violated when Graham was shot.
“We’ve asked the mayor to do a job; everything doesn’t have to be a public display, but we got to put you on publicly to do what you got to do,” King said. “(The mayor) wants the trust of the black community, which he keeps asking for, he does all these other community based outreach programs but he still won’t hold an officer accountable for killing a black.”
