Commissioner Kelly Voices Concern on Fatal Bronx Shooting
Responding to Home Invasion, Police Kill Resident Who Was Holding A Gun
A police officer who shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old in the bathroom of the teenagers Bronx apartment has been stripped of his gun and badge, the police commissioner said Friday, and both the commissioner and the mayor expressed concern about the circumstances of the shooting.
The commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, stopped short of declaring the shooting unjustified but said at a news conference: At this juncture, we see an unarmed person being shot. That always concerns us.
The fatal shot came shortly after 3 p.m. Thursday. Members of the Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit, who had pursued Mr. Graham based on a report that he was armed, broke open the door to the second-floor apartment where he lived with his family on East 229th Street, Mr. Kelly said.
As the first officer came through, Mr. Graham emerged from the back of the apartment running toward them, then veered into the bathroom, the police said.
Show me your hands! Show me your hands! the officer yelled, said Mr. Kelly, who cited the account of a second officer who trailed the first officer into the apartment. The police did not release the names of any of the officers. Mr. Graham was black; the officer who shot him is white.
Inside the apartment, Mr. Kelly said, the first officer, who was in the hallway outside the bathroom, yelled, Gun! Gun! suggesting to the officers behind him that Mr. Graham was armed.
The partner said he then heard a shot, Mr. Kelly said. It is at that point we believe the shooting officer fired once from his 9-millimeter service firearm.
The bullet hit Mr. Graham in the upper chest, striking a lung and his aorta, killing him, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner.
Mr. Kelly added that investigators had yet to find evidence that Mr. Graham was armed. No gun was recovered, the commissioner said. Rather, the police said, a bag of marijuana was found in the toilet, raising the possibility that Mr. Graham bolted to the bathroom to try to dispose of it.
The scene outside Mr. Grahams home on Friday was tense at times. As the police re-entered the three-family house to execute a search warrant, one bystander on the street yelled, You killed him because he smoked weed! Later, dozens of people began shouting toward the officers inside. Murderers! many yelled.
Mr. Kelly, recounting Thursdays events, said the narcotics team had been staking out a bodega at East 228th Street and White Plains Road, after the police had received reports of drug sales out front.
With two friends, Mr. Graham went into the bodega. But they left quickly, and as they did, team members who were observing the bodega radioed their colleagues that they believed one of the three who they later learned was Mr. Graham was armed, Mr. Kelly said.
The impression that Mr. Graham had a gun was reinforced as officers tracked the three men. The group next went to a home at 728 East 229th Street, where Mr. Graham was spotted leaving with what appeared to be the butt of a gun in his waistband, according to another set of radio transmissions among the narcotics team members.
Two officers wearing raid jackets and bullet-resistant vests emerged from a van and yelled, Police! Stop! Dont move! said Mr. Kelly, citing the account of a civilian witness.
But Mr. Graham made it to his home at 749 East 229th Street, and the front door locked, stymieing officers who were pursuing him with their guns drawn. Another tenant, Gene Davis, 60, said he saw the officers rushing through the outside gate before they reached the door. They yelled at him: Dont move! Get back!
Eventually, a man alerted by the commotion let the sergeant in a back door and told him that Mr. Graham lived on the second floor. The officers then spread out: One stayed on the ground floor; the sergeant stayed on the stairs; and two lead officers went to the apartment and knocked. When no one answered, they broke open the door, Mr. Kelly said.
Precisely what happened in the bathroom seconds later is not clear. On Thursday night, the police said Mr. Graham had tussled with an officer, but on Friday, Mr. Kelly said there did not appear to be any evidence of a struggle.
We dont believe there was contact, he said.
The officer yelled, Gun! Gun! and then fired, Mr. Kelly said.
The teenagers grandmother Patricia Hartley was in the hallway. Paulet Minzie, the landlady, who lives on the third floor, said she heard the grandmother shouting at the police: Why you hitting me? Why you hitting me?
Mr. Grahams 6-year-old brother was also screaming, Ms. Minzie said. He said, They killed my brother! she related.
Responding to Home Invasion, Police Kill Resident Who Was Holding A Gun
Dale Ogarro had been grabbed by two armed men wearing hoods, masks and latex gloves and led gun to his head into his residence in the basement of the home, on Schenck Avenue.
Wheres the money? they shouted at Mr. Ogarro, according to officials account of his girlfriend's 911 calls.
Moments later, the officers saw a man who they later learned was Mr. Ogarro, 41, emerging from the back entrance with his hands up. He said there was not a problem.
It was not. In the next moments, a second man came out that door, carrying a loaded .38-caliber revolver and refusing an officers orders to freeze, the authorities said.
The man made some kind of move, the police said, and an officer, 30, fired a single bullet that tore through the mans chest, killing him.
What was learned thereafter was that uniformed officers had not shot a robber, but another resident of the home, Duane Browne, 26, about 14 minutes after the first 911 call.
The police said Mr. Browne was the half-brother of Mr. Ogarro, the target of the robbery. The police said that while Mr. Ogarro did not tell them much about what had happened with the robbers, investigators found 11 bags of marijuana and a scale in his home....
Paul J. Browne, the Police Departments chief spokesman, who is not related to Duane Browne, said: The overarching consideration that is looked at, in whether a shooting is justified or not, is whether it is reasonable for the police officer to believe that either he or somebody else present is in imminent danger of serious injury or death. And in this instance you had an individual, armed, who was not complying with a directive to stop and drop the gun....
The police said the robbers had emerged from an alley as Mr. Ogarro parked his Tahoe in his driveway behind his house. He was grabbed, and his girlfriend remained in the car.
Duane Browne, who was in the bedroom with Ms. Ferdinand, heard a commotion below, and when he checked the noise, saw Mr. Ogarro with two men and returned upstairs, the police said. He told his girlfriend, Theyre messing with my brother, Mr. Kelly said, and he retrieved a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson.
As officers arrived, Mr. Ogarros captors told him to show them a way out of the house and he led them through the front door to avoid the police. Mr. Ogarro then exited from the rear, and officers handcuffed him.
When Mr. Browne came outside with the gun in his hand, about 10:50 p.m., an officer, with his gun raised, said, Police, dont move, officials said, citing what his partner recounted. Mr. Ogarro said he heard an officer yell, Freeze, freeze, freeze, hes got a revolver, but the police said they have a recorded transmission in which a man they believe is the officer who opened fire yelled, Hes got a gun. Mr. Ogarros girlfriend told the police that she heard the police officer shout, Freeze, freeze, drop the weapon, the police said.
Mr. Browne was taken to Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, Mr. Kelly said.
The police said the gun recovered at the scene was illegal and was not registered to Mr. Browne. It was loaded with five bullets, and a round was discovered on the ground.
In April 2005, Mr. Ogarro was wounded by gunfire in a former residence in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, the police said, in a dispute over a sale of two pounds of marijuana. He was also present a month later when a drug dealer carried out a killing, the police said.
