Their loved ones were killed over a decade ago by police. Is DA's new report justice?

Families of two Black men killed by police more than a decade ago found the findings of a recent review of their relatives' shootings both validating and frustrating.

The report was released Wednesday by Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah after a two-year review of the cases.

Kenneth Chamberlain, 68, was killed by White Plains police on Nov. 19, 2011. Police responded to Chamberlain's apartment after his medical alert device inadvertently activated. Chamberlain told them he was fine. Police broke down the door and reported that Chamberlain had a knife. He was shot by police and died later at White Plains Hospital.

Danroy Henry, known as DJ,  was shot by a Pleasantville police officer as he drove through the Town Center parking lot in Thornwood on Oct. 17, 2010, after Pace University's Homecoming game. The 20-year-old Pace star football player was leaving a local bar that the owner had closed after a brawl that didn't involve Henry or his friends. Police said Henry had tried to run over an officer; witnesses said the officer jumped on the hood of the car as DJ tried to navigate his way out of the shopping plaza.

The report gave Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. some new insight into the rules surrounding grand juries, but left him still with too many unanswered questions.

"A grand jury protects the system and it protects officers from accountability," he said Wednesday. "We need some type of legislation that can stop these grand jury proceedings from being secret. They shouldn't be secret."

Review of police-involved killings: Westchester DA will not reconvene grand jury over Henry, Chamberlain shootings

Angella Henry, Danroy's mother, expressed similar frustrations with the secretive grand jury process. Her family was unaware until their civil suits against local municipalities that Mount Pleasant Police Officer Ronald Beckley had testified that he had believed that night that Pleasantville Police Officer Aaron Hess, who fatally shot DJ, was the aggressor. “

"Grieving families should be able to see what case is being presented against their child,” Angella Henry said.

DJ Henry's family: 'We felt unheard'

Angella Henry said that the new DA report confirmed her feelings that the family and her son's memory were mistreated by the process. She also saw shortcomings in the investigation by former Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore, the DA at the time of DJ's killing, and her team. “We don’t believe they did an accurate review of the case and oftentimes we felt unheard," she said.

The new report, Angella Henry said, confirms what the family and supporters said all along: “Our son was not, and has never been, the reason he’s not here.”

Angella Henry said she and her husband, Dan, and their family “have never been anti-police and never been against police officers.” She is aware that DJ’s killing brought a wider understanding of the threats that young Black men and women face in police interactions. But, she added, “If people are upset, think of other ways to serve.”

Angella Henry said the DJ Henry Dream Fund, which supports youth activities, just gave away its millionth dollar. “Now a new generation of children know DJ’s name," she said.

Sean Harris' family seeks answers: Social workers called cops on teen; now he's dead

Pace University in 2020 established a Social Justice Week and in 2021 unveiled a mural honoring Henry. They serve as reminders that "we have much work to do in this country to achieve progress, racial equity, and social justice," Pace University President Marvin Krislov said Wednesday after the DA's report was released.

“The killing of DJ Henry remains an unforgettable and heartbreaking tragedy — one that forever changed the lives of his family, friends, loved ones, and members of the Pace community," Krislov said. "DJ will never be forgotten."

Chamberlain: 'Justice should be immediate'

While Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. accepts why a new grand jury wasn't convened, he still wants answers about the first one. He suspects that prosecutors may have only asked grand jurors to consider a murder charge — something that would have required them to believe that Officer Anthony Carelli wanted to kill his father — instead of also asking them to consider manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

"We can sit here and speculate forever but I just do not believe this case was presented fully and fairly," he said.

Chamberlain and one of his lawyers, Randolph McLaughlin, took some comfort in Rocah's questions about what protocols, if any, White Plains police had in place for dealing with emotionally disturbed people and de-escalating mental health crises.

"They mocked him, they cursed him, they used the N-word and then they broke into his house and shot him," McLaughlin said of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. "De-escalation? Absolutely none."

‘You do not respect our Black lives:’ New Rochelle residents enraged over police shooting of Jarrell Garris

And Rocah questioned whether the police department "was sufficiently transparent about the inexcusable use of a racial slur" by one of the officers during the standoff before Chamberlain was killed.

"For the DA at the time to say it was used as a tactic, to distract, and not to condemn it straight away as racist, I'm sorry, that was salt in the wounds," McLaughlin said.

Chamberlain said his father's death has led him to be active in police reform efforts, even as his ultimate goal has eluded him.

"The battle cry used to be Justice for Kenneth Chamberlain Sr.," Chamberlain said. "But justice should be immediate and it should be swift and we never received that in my father's case."

Now he's all about putting mechanisms in place that will prevent other families from experiencing what his has, including by pursuing legislation and seeking to make sure police departments have mental health professionals on staff for cases police are not equipped to handle.

"Prosecutors and police have to be transparent when you have situations like this," he said. "Because the transparency will hopefully bring about accountability if it's indicated there was misconduct, which in turn will bring about trust from the community they serve. But right now we're not seeing that happening."

Wilbur Aldridge, the NAACP Mid-Hudson Valley's regional director, said the next step after Rocah’s report: following up on the recommendations made to avoid such incidents in the future. “How quickly,” he asked, “would that be enacted?”

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Westchester DA report of Black men killed by police frustrates families