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Cop kills unarmed teen



By JOSE MARTINEZ, JONATHAN LEMIRE and PAUL H.B. SHIN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS


A housing cop killed an unarmed 19-year-old high school student on the roof of a Brooklyn housing project yesterday in what the police commissioner called an unjustified shooting.
A veteran officer on routine roof patrol at the Louis Armstrong Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant shot Timothy Stansbury Jr. once at the top of a staircase leading to the roof of 385 Lexington Ave. shortly before 1 a.m., Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

"At this point, based on the facts we have gathered, there appears to be no justification for this shooting," Kelly said. "This is a tragic incident that compels us to take an in-depth look at the tactics and training for new and veteran officers."

Stansbury's family was distraught and outraged.

"They're killing us like dogs out here, pure dogs!" said Stansbury's mother, Phyllis Clayburne, a Police Department crossing guard.

Police sources said Officer Richard Neri, 35 - who had not fired a shot in the line of duty in his 12-year career - seems to have been startled when his partner, Officer Jason Hallik, 33, opened the roof door from the outside just as Stansbury pushed on the door from the inside.

After squeezing off a round, Neri screamed to Hallik, "I let one go! I let one go!" Hallik told investigators, sources said.

Hallik also said it may have appeared that Stansbury was lunging at him, prompting Neri to fire to protect his partner, a source said.

Stansbury was shot in the chest from3 to 4 feet away and left a trail of blood as he staggered to the lobby five flights below and collapsed, Kelly said.

The teen and two friends had been planning to return to a party in an adjacent building via the rooftop, which was common practice in the complex, neighbors said. However, Housing Authority rules forbid walking on the roof.

Stansbury's friends told family members the teen did nothing to provoke the shooting and was holding only music CDs.

"Mommy, I saw them shoot him for no reason," a tearful Terrence Fisher, 19, told his mother, Jewel Austin, 44, she said.

"It doesn't make any sense," said the victim's father, Timothy Stansbury Sr., 45. "Why would a trained police officer just shoot a young boy who's not even armed?"

The father, who spoke to his son's two companions shortly after the shooting, said the officer "didn't ask no questions, didn't say freeze, didn't say hold it, didn't say stop, and just shot my son, just like that."

Residents of the sprawling housing project shouted angrily in the hallways as Mayor Bloomberg visited the family to offer his condolences.

Bloomberg promised a full investigation, officials said.

Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) said of the incident, "Heads should roll."

Elizabeth Decambre, 45, who lives on the first floor near where Stansbury collapsed, said the two uniformed officers stood over the teen while neighbors screamed for them to help.

"The kid was lying there looking up at us. He was reaching up with one arm," she said.

Stansbury was taken to Woodhull Hospital, where he died about 2:40 a.m., officials said. He had been working toward his GED at Thomas Jefferson High School, family members said.

Officers are permitted to draw their guns while on rooftop patrol, Kelly said. He said it appears the officer gave no warning before firing his Glock 9-mm. semiautomatic handgun.

City Hall and police brass were quick to declare the shooting unjustified, with Kelly making his statement about 2 p.m. The speed of the response was in contrast to police handling of the shootings of other unarmed civilians, including Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond, in recent years.

Neri has been placed on modified duty, and his weapon and shield were taken from him, officials said. At the request of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, detectives did not immediately interview Neri.

Hallik, who has been on the job for four years, has been placed on administrative desk duty, officials said.

One of Neri's neighbors in Wantagh, L.I., described him as a "good family man."


The final hours of Timothy Stansbury


10:30 p.m.: Stansbury clocks out of his job at McDonald's on Fulton St. and Nostrand Ave. and begins walking home.

10:45 p.m.: Stansbury arrives at his grandmother's fourth-floor apartment at 395 Lexington Ave. and changes from his McDonald's uniform to his street clothes. He plays video games and listens to rap for about 1.5 hours.

About 12:30 a.m.: Stansbury's friend Shawn Rahmes, 23, comes to Stansbury's apartment. They leave together to go to a friend's birthday party next door.

About 12:45 a.m.: Stansbury and Rahmes leave the party to pick up some CDs from a friend's third-floor apartment at 385 Lexington Ave.

Shortly before 1 a.m.: Stansbury, Rahmes and his deejay friend, Terrence Fisher, 19, leave Fisher's apartment and climb the stairs to the roof of 385 Lexington Ave. At the same time, Officer Richard Neri, 35, and his partner, Jason Hallik, 33, are patrolling the rooftop of 385 Lexington Ave.

Minutes later: Stansbury, Hallik and Neri reach the rooftop doorway simultaneously - the cops on the outside, the teens from the inside. Hallik opens the door. Neri, startled, shoots Stansbury in the chest. Stansbury and his two friends stumble back down the stairs.

12:58 a.m.: Neri and Hallik find Stansbury collapsed in a pool of blood in the first-floor lobby of 385 Lexington Ave. and call for an ambulance. Stansbury is taken to Woodhull Hospital in critical condition.

2:40 a.m.: Stansbury is declared dead at Woodhull Hospital.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/158156p-138819c.html

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AND of course the pig gets away with it. Whats one more dead black boy....

the police oficer will be assigned desk duty with pay until the outcome of the investigation. the autopsy will show the teenager had no drugs, but had consumed alcohol which may explain him lunging at the other officer.

the investigation will clear the officer.

please, i am not denigrating police officers. they do their job and earn their pay. the problem is the police administration does nothing to control officers or punish them when they make a mistake. this officer has probbly been working a high crime area as evidenced by his authority to remove his weapon from it's holster when he patrols the roofs.

his superiors should have been alerted to this potential problem and changed his duty to some other area before his happened. some one must have noticed this officer's tension level working the roof patrol.

i believe the police officer who slammed the young kid who was hancuffed into the hood of the car has not been found innocent or guilty. two hung juries. however, he should be released from the department and he should never be allowed to work for any police force or security service again. he is obviously not able to control his anger.

in this case, i see the officer's actions as an accident. does that make it right? not by a long shot. but this isn't a case of 41 bullets -- it's a case of one startled officer, gun drawn, firing one shot and verbally recognizing the mistake immediately ("i let one go! i let one go!" in cop talk translates roughly to "oh ****. i didn't mean to do that!").

thing is, a life's been taken needlessly. i'm sure that no one is going to be as rough on officer neri as he himself will be. sounds like a good cop -- not a single complaint on his record, never fired his weapon -- in 12 years? that's a lifetime for an NYPD cop.

it's an accident. tragic, yes. i doubt that he will be put on similar duty ever again, and he's going to face years of accusations as a murderer. i feel bad for him, and i feel bad for the victim's family.

but sometimes there is just no way to take back time or ever "make it right."

one thing i wish, though, is that families would consider sueing drug dealers and street murderers for civil rights violations. does it matter if the bullet comes from the gun or a cop or from the gun of a criminal? for that matter, does it have to be a bullet at all? how many are killed by the needle? how many by the crack pipe? where's the outrage for the pushers who deal out those deaths? where are the civil rights violation trials bringing those to justice who deal in wholesale disease and death via needle and pipe?

people in my mostly white suburban neighborhood aren't dying from the needle or the pipe. people in the mostly black neighborhood are. is that not discrimination? where's the trial for the dealers killing black boys (and girls) with the needle and the pipe?

Pointing the blame away and onto the drug dealers?

First of all, if someone wants to kill them self with drugs that is their right, or it should be their right. All drugs should be legal, and the people in jails for non violent crimes should be free to make room for these cops that shoot unarmed Americans.

I blame the laws and the police for all Americans killed by drug related crimes. But this is not the issue at hand, a crazy pig with a gun who shot dead an unarmed black child, not on drugs nor dealing drugs, in his own apartment complex is the issue at hand.


The Nazi dogs ate this poor black child as they did so many others.

65 writes: "Pointing the blame away and onto the drug dealers?"

nope, not at all. my motto in law enforcement as with every other aspect of life is this: there are 1,000 reasons but not one excuse.

and officer neri should not be EXCUSED for his actions, although they can be understood -- apparently even by a jury comprised of mostly people of color and civilians.

your rabid attack on the man, however, is inexcusable. sure, you can think whatever you want to think, but an officer who's done 12 years as a beat cop in nyc without a single complaint and w/o ever firing his sidearm is not, imo, "crazy" by any means.

the man made a mistake. a deadly mistake. no matter what the punishment from the outside, he's going to have to live with that for the rest of his life. he sounds like the kind of officer who is going to punish himself for it on the inside all the rest of his days.

and that's as it should be. NO ONE should take a life in such a manner and not be haunted by it. there are 1,000 reasons, but not one excuse.

bear in mind, i'm not the kind of guy who eases up on someone because he's a "brother of the badge," either. if cops screwed up under my command, i'd be so far up their butts that they'd see me waving hello when they opened their mouths to speak. i can't imagine how furious i would be if one of my guys had killed a civilian under those circumstances.

i hold POs to a high, high standard and expect that someone with 12 years on the beat to be damned near able to walk on water while wearing that uniform.

i also realize that there are humans behind the badges, and all humans make mistakes. sometimes deadly mistakes. but there are 1,000 reasons, but not one excuse.

as for the "civil rights violation," though, i draw the line there. there is ZERO evidence that officer nero was out to kill a person of color or harm that young man in ANY way. zero evidence. and i must say that i am SICK TO DEATH of any harm that befalls a person of color turning INTO a "race issue."

accidents happen to everyone. if a white man had been behind that door, i'm sure it would have been a white man who had taken nero's bullet in that situation.

41 bullets in a black man's body stinks to high heaven of civil rights violation.

a single bullet in a black man from a cop with NO prior complaints and NO prior shots fired has nothing under the son to do with race or civil rights. it has to do only with one cop making one mistake, and that mistake being a tragic and deadly one.

yes, the victim's family is due all the sympathy in the world, all the prayers, all the comfort, and all the compensation to which they are entitled for this tragic accident.

they are not due one cent, however, for having black skin. the victim could have been of any race; the officer could have any race. if it had been a black officer who had made this error, would this be a "civil rights" issue?

i've no doubt that some of you will label me a racist (to go along with the "pig" and "baby killer" labels flying around here lately). if that's what you think, go for it. but don't for a second think that you know me very well.

the above was to Sonny

65: nope. never once did i say that he should be given a pass. he should be judged, as he was, in a grand jury investigation, and the findings of that jury should stick.

if we don't go with what a jury decides in our criminal justice system, then we might as well just ditch the whole thing and string up anyone we suspect to be guilty of any crime. get out the rope and go wild. somehow i don't think a whole lot of white cops are going to end up strung up with that kind of "justice system," though.

as for him continuing as a cop? that requires more facts than i have. personally, i'd put him into mandatory counseling for at least one year, and in that time he could continue to work in a low-stress, unarmed capacity. if, after a year, he's deemed as fit for full duty, then yes. he can return to full duty. however, i would still not want him in a high-incident area or on night duty. i'd be more inclined to put him in a cruiser doing traffic patrol.

"he's going to have to live with that for the rest of his life. he sounds like the kind of officer who is going to punish himself ""

Not if he hates black people, he could see this in his eyes as doing a public service.

ahh.....figured you had a bad experience. I will agree that Officers of the law many times don't realize that they are not figures of authority, rather they are enforcers of the laws that the real figures of authority lay before us. I wish all municipalities had enough funding to hire/recruit highly educated individuals as does the FBI, US Marshalls, and some other select law enforcement agencies.
At times, people of questionable character are put in these jobs because no one wants to work for peanuts.

Tobacco is a drug? And here I thought it was a plant.

Asprin is a drug, so is Viagara, morphine, penacilian (sp?), and caffine. You want to make all those illegal 65?

I agree that the officer should be reprimanded. But life in jail? Come on 65. If it was an accident is that right? If you are moving a piano and you lose your grip and it rolls down the stairs and kills your budy who was helping you move it should you get a lifetime in jail? I think you need a reality check.

Why is a cop doing a routine patrol with his gun in hand and finger on trigger.

Why to police have gun holsters? For when they are beating a innocent man to death with their clubs.

hahahahaha

Your being silly now, if you legalize all drugs, then it would not be a crime.

Drugs don’t kill people, people kill people.

Drugs don't kill people? That is the stupidest thing I've heard to date on this board. Do the words "Heroin Overdose" mean anything to you?

If drugs don't kill people then please explain to me why Jimmy Hendrix is no longer playing guitar.

"guns don’t kill people, people kill people," That is the stupidest thing I've heard to date on this board did you ever hear of suicide by hand gun?

I think guns should be banned.

tobacco and alcohol are drugs too and have been known to kill people. Let’s jail cigar smokers and beer drinkers. We need to make whole state into big jails. More and more jails. That is the answer.

Geez I really need to spell check or re-read these things before I post them.

Is coffee a drug? Is chocolate a drug?

Is coffee a drug? Is chocolate a drug?

Yes they are drugs. Parts of each of these chemicals you speak of are used in many behind the counter drugs.

most all drugs come from plant matters.

Caffine is a drug. Coffee and chocolate are items which contain the drug caffine. Unless of course its decaffinated coffee.

One of my favorite things to drink onstage with my band is Water Joe. Its water with caffine added. Does that mean the water is a drug? Of course not. Its an item that contains a drug.

Cops killing the disabled...there outta be a law!

Where do you geniuses think nicotine comes from?

That’s like saying marijuana is a plant and Tetrahydrocannabinol is a drug. But the plant contains Tetrahydrocannabinol therefore the whole plant is illegal.

Granted it’s a non-pure form of the active ingredient, but that drug is there in the tobacco plant from the start it is not added. Sure one could extract a pure form of nicotine out of a tobacco plant and spray it on to a cigarette to increase the nicotine ratio, but regardless nicotine is found in the tobacco plant.

The Tobacco plant contains the drug nicotine naturally.

Now for, a standard procedure walking around rooftops with guns in hand on routine patrol, that’s insane and should be rethought, the police might shoot an innocent man by accident…

Caffine is found naturally in coffee beans (at least I think it does. I don't think they add caffine to the coffee after). So they take the DRUG out of the COFFEE. The coffee isn't the drug.

I would hazard a guess that the same could be true of tobacco. Although I'm no biologist I would think that you could grow a strain of tobacco with more Nicotine in it or less, or even none at all. If you have a strain of tobacco with no nicotine in it does that mean the tobacco is still a drug? Or does that mean it isn't tobacco anymore.

Now I could be totally wrong about this but I don't think marijuana the plant is illegal per say. I know there is marijuana in hemp and some clothes and necklaces sold in the US are made of that. Also, I went to a tanning salon and got some bronzing lotion and that clearly said on the label that it contained marijuana plant. It even had a big pot leaf on the label. So I'm thinking the plant isn't illegal its the THC that is. If you can get the plant without THC its ok. Am I wrong about that?

I would've thought the cops would shoot a person with arms. Maybe even legs, and a head...what are they teaching at the Academy nowadays?

Jeeesh!

"I live in the same country the poor dead black boy lives in."

Now I'm really confused. Is the poor black boy dead or is he living? According to the above statement he is both.

*lived. ok I see you are all done, your down to making fun of my grammar mistakes now.


I find it funny that regardless of how and why a child was shot, that the "evil right wing" will defend the actions of a cop who is clearly in the wrong.

Congratulations to Cavallo for not taking this (total right wing cops do no wrong stance) as many so called republicans often do.

Im all done on this topic, I need to get back to cleaning the house up, a weekend party has destroyed most of my kitchen

And DR mad, very funny jokes man, did you like mine about: Why do police have holsters? So they have a place for their guns when beating an innocent man to death with their nightsticks hehehe