Funeral Services Held For Kimani Gray, Teen Shot Dead By Police
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Funeral services were held Saturday for Kimani Gray, the Brooklyn teenager who was shot and killed by police earlier this month in an incident that has sparked heated protests.
The funeral services were held Saturday morning at St. Catherine of Genoa Church, at 520 Linden Blvd. in Brooklyn.
Kimani Gray was shot and killed on March 9, by two officers in East Flatbush. The shooting has triggered protests that have at times turned violent.
Carol Gray said her son was killed in front of his best friend's house after a birthday party. Autopsy results showed he was shot seven times in his shoulders, arms and legs, with wounds to the front and back of his body.
But police said Gray was with a group of young men that night, standing in front of a home on East 52nd Street when the officers, from the Brooklyn South Anti-Crime Patrol, approached.
When the officers started to talk to the group, Gray began acting suspiciously, police said.
Police said at one point, Gray grabbed for something in his waistband. Gray then pulled out a gun and pointed it at the officers, according to police.
When the plainclothes officers saw the gun, they both fired, police said. Gray was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital a short time later, police said.
Police said Gray was a gang member with several arrests to his name, but family members and neighbors said he was not in a gang and did not have a gun. Some have accused officers of planting the Rohm's Industry .38-caliber revolver recovered at the scene, calling it a "drop gun."
Protests against police actions in the case were held every night last week, from Monday through Thursday. Some of the protests led to violence and dozens of arrests.
Neighborhood teenagers have been joined in the protests by Occupy Wall Street activists, anti-stop-and-frisk policy, and representatives of anarchist and communist groups. The controversy was also the subject of a cover article in the Village Voice this week, which noted the discord that has mounted even amongst protesters in the wake of the incident.
Protesters have also appeared beyond East Flatbush. Last week, a woman addressed riders of the No. 1 line subway in uptown Manhattan, saying East Flatbush was under "martial law," and accusing police of "murdering" Kimani Gray.
The claims about "martial law" and a "frozen zone" that had been locked down by police in East Flatbush, while widely reported on non-news Web sites, turned out to be false, the Village Voice reported.
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