Over a hundred persons on Tuesday night gathered in the Flatbush Avenue, New York area to protest the recent killing of a 16-year-old boy of Guyanese and Jamaican descent by undercover police officers.
Police say Kimani ‘Kiki’ Gray pointed a gun at them on Saturday night in Brooklyn and they responded by firing 11 shots in his direction, seven of which hit him, but his family and at least one woman claiming to be an eyewitness have challenged the account.
During the protest on Tuesday, persons carried signs in Gray’s honour and pleaded with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to look into the incident. So far, the NYPD has not released the names of the officers or announced if they would be apprehended.
While Tuesday’s vigil was peaceful, a similar event staged the previous night was marred as some persons raided a nearby pharmacy and attempted to steal the cash register.
During the attack, a reverend, who was customer of the pharmacy, was hit in the head with a wine bottle when he attempted to stop the raid.
According to the New York Daily News, police say they came across a group of young men on Saturday evening and saw Gray acting suspiciously, walking away from his friends when he saw the officer’s approach.
Officers say he began to adjust his waistband and started to act suspiciously.
The newspaper reported that Gray then turned around and pointed a .357 caliber gun at them, according to police accounts, and the two plainclothes officers responded by opening fire.
The teen was rushed to Kings County Hospital but he later died. The Daily News said an autopsy found that Gray was hit once in the rear left shoulder, twice in his back thighs, twice in the front thighs, once in his left side and once in his lower left forearm.
However, witnesses to the shooting say that the NYPD’s account is wrong. Gray’s older sister, Mahnefah Gray, 19, said that one of the witnesses of the shooting told her that her brother was only fixing his belt.
She added that her brother had too much “common sense” to point a loaded gun at an officer, and doubted that he was even carrying a gun at all.
A woman, who lives across the street from the scene of the shooting, told the New York Times that Gray was calling out “Please don’t let me die!” and that the officers yelled back, “Stay down, or we’ll shoot you again.”
Grey lived in nearby Crown Heights, but had grown up in East Flatbush and returned there to visit friends.
His older brother, Jamar, was killed in a car accident two years ago.
