COPS RIPPED
Panel found bad tactics before Ramarley slay
AN NYPD administrative judge and its firearms review panel criticized the conduct of three police officers involved in the 2012 shooting death of an 18-year-old Bronx man, records obtained by the Daily News show.
The judge’s decision involving Officer Richard Haste, who shot and killed Ramarley Graham, and the NYPD’s Firearms Discharge Review Board both found that Haste, Officer John McLoughlin and Sgt. Scott Morris used poor judgment and improper tactics, the records show.
McLoughlin kicked in the door of a second-floor apartment on E. 229th St. in Williamsbridge, allowing Haste to move in and confront Graham in a bathroom. Haste claimed at his disciplinary trial that he fired because he thought Graham was attacking him.
“By making entry into the second-floor apartment, the officers exercised bad tactical judgment because there were better safer options available,” the review panel report said. “Sgt. Morris failed to supervise this incident.”
Despite those conclusions, the department found the shooting itself justified.
“While the firearm discharge that occurred was legally justified, the members involved in their actions, failed to exercise sound tactical judgment,” the report said. “These actions impacted directly on the discharge itself.”
Former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and then-Chief of Department James O’Neill signed off on the panel’s conclusions in April 2015.
But the department withheld the records, even after they were admitted in evidence at Haste’s public trial. After the trial, Haste resigned rather than face termination.
The NYPD initially said Graham was “walking with purpose” when the officers spotted him on the street. One of the officers believed he saw a gun in his waistband, but no gun was ever found.
In her decision, administrative law judge Rosemary Maldonado recommended that Haste be fired. Haste’s decision to ignore basic NYPD procedures and tactics was “repeated, flagrant and avoidable,” Maldonado wrote.
Maldonado found that the danger Haste claimed was of his own making. “A reasonable officer in that position would have proceeded very differently,” she wrote.
Maldonado also noted that McLoughlin and Morris were not properly trained and weren’t wearing the appropriate uniforms.
Graham’s mother Constance Malcolm said the documents make clear that Morris and McLoughlin should also be fired.
“They are a danger to public safety and should not continue to collect paychecks from the NYPD,” Malcolm said. “It seems like a game the city is playing . . . meant to allow the avoid accountability.”
There is still no administrative trial date for Morris or McLoughlin, the NYPD said Wednesday.
The NYPD denied two requests by the Daily News under the Freedom of Information Law for the records, citing Section 50-a of the state civil rights law — which allows police agencies to withhold personnel records.
“The tactics were the best representation of my training and experience, given the situation I encountered,” Haste testified at Police Headquarters during his January trial. officers to NO NEWS was frustrating news once more for the family of Eric Garner. The police chokehold victim’s relatives met Wednesday with Department of Justice officials about the long-running federal probe into Garner’s death on July 17, 2014, in Staten Island. “Once again, we’re going to be playing the waiting game,” said mom Gwen Carr after Department of Justice officials declared no decision was reached about prosecuting NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo. The cop was already cleared by a Staten Island grand jury. Garner, 43, was placed in the chokehold as police arrested him for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.