Report: Officers Who Killed Kimani Gray Have History Of Complaints Against Them
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Two police officers who shot and killed a 16-year-old boy on a street in East Flatbush, Brooklyn have a history of being sued for civil rights violations, according to a published report.
The city has paid $215,000 to settle three lawsuits against Sgt. Mourad Mourad and two against officer Jovaniel Cordova, according to the New York Daily News.
The officers were in East Flatbush March 9 when they tried to stop and question Kimani Gray, 16, on the street.
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.
A gun was recovered at the scene, but Gray's family maintains the teen wasn't armed. A lawyer for the Gray family has questioned the NYPD's account of what happened and said the family wants to know how the gun was recovered.
Kimani Gray's mother, 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.
Protests against police actions in the case were held every night from Monday through Thursday. Some of the protests led to violence and dozens of arrests.
Protesters have also appeared beyond East Flatbush. On Friday afternoon, 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" Gray.
The officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative duty pending an investigation, which is standard practice.
The civil rights lawsuits against the two officers were all by people who claimed they were illegally stopped and then roughed up.
A Law Department spokeswoman says the settlements were not an admission of wrongdoing.
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