The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain: Lawsuit, Settlement, and DA Review

The killing of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. happened inside his own apartment in White Plains, New York, on November 19, 2011, after the 68-year-old retired Marine’s medical alert pendant went off by accident while he slept and drew police to his door for a welfare check he did not want. Roughly 90 minutes later, officers forced their way in, and Officer Anthony Carelli shot him. No officer was ever criminally charged. In August 2023, the City of White Plains paid Chamberlain’s family $5 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit.¹²

How the Encounter Began

Chamberlain lived at the Winbrook Houses, a public housing complex on South Lexington Avenue. He had bipolar disorder, arthritis, and respiratory illness, and wore a LifeAid pendant because of a chronic heart condition.³ Around 5:00 a.m., the pendant activated by accident. LifeAid called the apartment, got no answer, and notified the White Plains Police Department. Before officers arrived, a WPPD dispatcher pulled records and flagged the address as involving a “potentially emotionally disturbed” person.⁴

The Standoff at the Door

Officers knocked. Chamberlain refused to open. At 5:25 a.m., he called LifeAid and said: “I have the White Plains Police Department banging on my door and I did not call them, and I am not sick.” The LifeAid operator tried to cancel the police dispatch. Officers insisted on entering to confirm he was well. LifeAid also reached Chamberlain’s sister to try to help defuse the situation.⁴⁵

Officers used a master key to unlock the door, but Chamberlain had engaged a safety lock from inside, leaving it open only a few inches. Between roughly 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., they worked tools into the gap trying to pry it wider. Chamberlain grew increasingly agitated, cursed at officers, and at one point pushed a kitchen knife through the gap. Officer Anthony Carelli removed it with bolt cutters. A tactical unit assembled, including Officers Carelli, Steven Demchuk, and Steven Hart, and Sergeant Stephen Fottrell, who carried a Taser with a recording camera.⁴⁶

The Racial Slur on the Recording

Audio captured by Chamberlain’s LifeAid pendant recorded Officer Steven Hart banging on a window and yelling a racial slur. According to audio later released by the White Plains Police Department, Hart said: “I don’t give a [expletive], nigger!”⁵ Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore confirmed the slur was on the audio, saying “the use of a racial epithet in any context is offensive to the dignity of all of us.”⁷ The federal investigation later noted that the officer who used the slur was not the one who fired the fatal shots.⁴

The Forced Entry and Shooting

Between 6:13 and 6:29 a.m., officers kicked the door open. Sergeant Fottrell’s Taser camera captured Chamberlain standing six to seven feet from the doorway, appearing to hold a knife. Fottrell ordered him to “put the knife down.” Chamberlain responded, according to the recording: “Shoot me, come on motherfucker, shoot me.”⁴

Officers deployed less-lethal force in sequence. Fottrell fired his Taser twice; only one barb connected, and it did not incapacitate Chamberlain. Officers then fired beanbag rounds from a shotgun, striking Chamberlain in the chest and thigh. Those rounds also failed to stop him. The Taser’s camera automatically stopped recording after the second Taser deployment, so no video exists of what happened next.⁴⁷

According to the officers present, Chamberlain then advanced toward Sergeant Keith Martin with the knife. Officer Carelli fired his pistol twice, and one bullet fatally struck Chamberlain. Officer Demchuk hit Chamberlain’s wrist with a baton to disarm him. An autopsy confirmed the gunshot wound as the cause of death.⁴

The family and their attorneys have long disputed that account. Attorney Randolph McLaughlin said “the only people who say he had a knife at that moment were the officers who were there, getting ready to shoot him,” and noted that Chamberlain himself could no longer tell his side of the story.¹

What the Recordings Do and Don’t Show

Three recording sources documented parts of the encounter. None captured the shooting itself. The LifeAid pendant recorded roughly 45 minutes of exchanges between Chamberlain, the operator, and police, from about 5:25 a.m. to around 6:08 a.m. Fottrell’s Taser video shows the door being kicked open, Chamberlain in the apartment, and the Taser being fired, then cuts off after the second deployment. Building hallway cameras captured officers arriving and entering the corridor.⁴⁵⁷

Why No Officer Was Charged

A Westchester County grand jury reviewed the case and declined to indict any officer. On May 3, 2012, DiFiore announced the result, saying the jury heard from 42 witnesses, reviewed 100 exhibits, and found “no reasonable cause to vote an indictment.” McLaughlin called the killing a “civil rights violation” and said the family would seek a federal investigation.⁷⁸

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York opened a federal civil rights investigation and closed it on January 4, 2018. Prosecutors cited “insufficient evidence to meet the high burden of proof required for a federal criminal civil rights prosecution,” saying they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any officer acted with the “deliberate and specific intent” to violate Chamberlain’s rights, and that other officers’ statements corroborated Carelli’s account that he believed Sergeant Martin was in imminent danger.⁴

The Civil Lawsuit and $5 Million Settlement

Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. filed a federal civil rights suit in the Southern District of New York against the City of White Plains and the officers, alleging excessive force and unlawful entry. On November 17, 2016, a jury found the city and Officer Carelli not liable. Chamberlain Jr. appealed.⁴

In June 2020, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed parts of the lower court’s rulings, finding that officers had violated Chamberlain’s Fourth Amendment rights through excessive force and unlawful entry and rejecting qualified immunity for some claims. That ruling sent the case back toward trial.⁹¹⁰

In August 2023, the city agreed to a $5 million settlement, the largest in its history.² The White Plains Police Benevolent Association said the settlement was “not an admission of misconduct or wrongdoing by the officers.”¹¹ Chamberlain Jr. said the money was “not a cause for celebration” and that it “doesn’t equate to accountability,” and he called for grand jury records to be unsealed.¹

The 2023 DA Review and Apology

In June 2021, Westchester County District Attorney Miriam Rocah, DiFiore’s successor, ordered an independent review of the case to determine whether new grand jury proceedings were warranted. Former federal prosecutors John Gleeson and Douglas Zolkind led the review. Their report, released on July 26, 2023, concluded there was no new evidence and no legal basis to seek court authorization for a new grand jury, describing the bar under New York law as “very high” to protect against “prosecutorial overreach.”¹²

The report still raised “serious questions” about the police response. It faulted the WPPD for not using specialized de-escalation techniques and for not involving available family members during the standoff, despite knowing Chamberlain was characterized as emotionally disturbed, and said the response “arguably escalated the encounter.” It called the officer’s racial slur “inexcusable” and questioned earlier characterizations of it as a “distraction tactic.” Rocah formally apologized to the family, acknowledging that they “did not have confidence in the investigation and grand jury process” and that her office “should have done more to help build that confidence.” She called for legislation, “The Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr. Law,” requiring all 42 police departments in Westchester County to adopt crisis-intervention training and mental health response protocols. By 2022, the county had implemented mobile crisis response units, and the WPPD had expanded its Mental Health Outreach Team.¹²

What Chamberlain’s Son Has Done Since

Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. co-founded the Westchester Coalition for Police Reform, which focuses on transparency, oversight, and structural change in policing.¹³ He has been a vocal critic of qualified immunity, calling it an “escape valve for police who break the law,” and has argued for redirecting police funding toward mental health professionals, saying the absence of crisis-intervention teams in Westchester County contributed directly to his father’s death.⁹

1
ABC7 New York. White Plains Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. Settlement Family
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The Journal News (lohud.com). White Plains to Settle With Kenneth Chamberlain Family for $5M
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The New York Times. Police Shooting of Mentally Ill Black Man Kenneth Chamberlain Trial Set to Begin
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U.S. Department of Justice. U.S. Attorney’s Office Closes Investigation Into Death of Kenneth Chamberlain
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Democracy Now!. Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. 2011 Police Killing
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Westlaw. Chamberlain v. City of White Plains, 986 F.Supp.2d 363
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CNN. New York Chamberlain Death
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Democracy Now!. Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. as Charges Ruled Out
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USA Today. After 9 Years, My Father Is Finally Closer to Justice for Death at Hands of Police
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Forbes. Morgan Freeman on Timely Film The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain
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Democracy Now!. Kenneth Chamberlain Settlement
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Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. Independent Review of the Death of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr.
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Pace University. Elisabeth Haub School of Law Pace University Honored Kenneth Chamberlain Sr.