White Plains Mourns Chamberlain’s Death, Son Calls for Independent Investigation
Fighting back tears as he addressed a crowd of around 150 people at the Thomas H. Slater Center in White Plains, Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., whose father was shot and killed by police Nov. 19, looked to set the record straight about the man shot twice in his Winbrook apartment.
“He is a father. A grandfather. A brother. Uncle. Friend. A retired Westchester County Corrections Officer and a retired United States Marine,” Chamberlain said. “So the devaluing and disparaging comments and depiction of my father as some sort of sociopath is inaccurate to say the least.”
Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., 68, was fatally shot in the early morning after a confrontation with White Plains police, who had responded to a call from Lifeline medical alert system. Chamberlain went after police first with a hatchet and then with a knife, according to Public Safety Commissioner David Chong, and withstood a Taser and four shots from a beanbag shotgun.
At a forum hosted by several local organizations including Westchester Blacks in Law Enforcement of America, WESPAC and the Westchester Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute for Nonviolence, friends and family of Chamberlain and leaders and members of the black community gathered at the Slater Center to mourn Chamberlain’s death Wednesday night. Many questioned whether police used excessive force, and Chamberlain Jr. called for an independent agency to investigate his father’s death.
“I have several friends that are local, state and federal law enforcement officers, and I want everyone to know that we’re not anti-police. My father was law enforcement,” he told the crowd. “Nevertheless, we are concerned by the challenges that a department faces when it has to investigate itself.”
Other speakers at the hour-long forum included family friend and local attorney Mayo Gregory Bartlett, Damon Jones of Blacks in Law Enforcement of America and White Plains/Greenburgh NAACP President Lena Anderson.
The day of Chamberlain’s death, Chong said there would be an investigation conducted by the police department and the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office but said preliminary findings suggested the officer who fired the fatal shots followed departmental guidelines and used every available avenue before using his weapon. The officer has not been identified.
Speakers at Wednesday’s forum, though, questioned why lethal force was needed to subdue a 68-year-old man.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.