Defense bid to keep jury isolated KOd

THE POLICE & THE PUBLIC

THE JUDGE handling the lawsuit filed by relatives of a 68-year-old man shot to death by White Plains cops in 2011 rejected a defense request that the jurors in the upcoming trial be kept away from protesters and housed in an “undisclosed location.”

Federal Judge Cathy Seibel did not immediately rule on a defense request to bar people from wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts and buttons in the courtroom during the Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. wrongful death trial.

The family Chamberlain (photo inset), a mentally ill former Marine, is seeking $21 million in the suit against the City of White Plains. Jury selection begins next Monday.

Chamberlain was fatally shot Nov. 19, 2011, after cops arrived to check on him at his apartment. Police said Chamberlain came at them with a knife after they shot him with beanbag rounds and zapped him with a Taser. Officer Anthony Carelli fired the fatal shots.

But Kenneth Chamberlain Jr.’s lawyers say they believe Chamberlain Sr. was terrified of the police and was lying on the floor when he was shot.

Debra Cohen, a lawyer for the family, said they have a document in which police ask the Westchester County medical examiner to test the knife for DNA.

“If the White Plains Police Department had this DNA report in their files and failed to turn it over, they can be sanctioned,” Cohen, of the law firm Newman Ferrara, said.

The Daily News reported Sunday that test results show the DNA found on the knife handle likely does not match Chamberlain Sr.’s, according to the family’s lawyers. A source close to the defense disputed that, saying they were not aware of the results.

Seibel allowed autopsy photos in as evidence but told the lawyers to minimize their gruesomeness. And she will also allow jurors to hear a 90-minute audiorecording of Chamberlain’s fatal encounter with police. But she decided not to allow an enhanced recording of one officer using a racial slur.

The jurors will be able to hear the slur in the longer recording, but it may not be completely audible. of