Witness Says Kimani Grays Hands Up when Killed by NYPD

Confines of the 67 Pct.     [ At the time ]  Brooklyn South Anti-Crime Sgt. Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordovao

Witness says teen had hands up, wasn’t pointing gun when copsfatally shot him in Brooklyn in 2013

By John Marzulli — Monday, March 28th, 2016  ‘The New York Daily News’

A Brooklyn woman who witnessed the fatal police shooting of 16-year-old Kimani Gray in East Flatbush in 2013 has testified under oath that the teen had his hands up and did not point a gun atcops as they claim he did, according to court papers.

Tinasha King was subpoenaed by city lawyers to answer questions at a deposition in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court by the teen’s mom, Carol Gray.

King’s son called 911 after the shooting, and the city’s lawyers wanted to confirm her prior recorded statement to investigators from the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau that she couldn’t see what the “kids were doing” from her third-floor apartment window.

Neither Internal Affairs investigators nor the city lawyer asked her whether Gray had a gun in his hand when he was shot by Sgt. Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordova. The teen, who police allege was a member of a gang, was hit seven times, including three times in his back.

After King’s deposition last Tuesday, the city accused Carol Gray’s lawyer, Richard Cardinale, of coaching the witness. Cardinale responded with a blistering letter to Federal Magistrate Judge Marilyn Go, calling the city’s lawyers “desperate.”

“Ms. King asked me how much longer the deposition was going to take, as (the city) had questioned King at length about every topic but the shooting itself,” Cardinale wrote.

“On cross-examination, I asked King a few questions about the shooting, and she testified that (Mourad and Cordova) shot Kimani Gray while he had his hands up and that, at no time, did Gray point a weapon at the defendants.”

King gave the same account to the Daily News three days after the shooting, insisting that Gray did not have a gun in his hand and was backing away from the officers when he was shot. Then-NYPD spokesman Paul Browne acknowledged at the time that King was not directly asked by investigators whether Gray had a gun in his hand because the Internal Affairs Bureau does not ask leading questions.

The city withdrew the coaching accusation in papers filed Friday.

A source familiar with the case said that when King was questioned immediately after the shooting, she had no idea that cops were claiming Gray was holding a gun when cops opened fire. King is a medical records clerk at Kings County Hospital.

King’s version sharply differed from then-Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s account that Gray had a .38-caliber revolver in his hand.

Carol Gray’s lawyers filed court papers this month disclosing that a memo from the chief medical examiner’s forensic biology department found a mixture of DNA from at least two people on the trigger and the trigger guard of the gun recovered at the scene, and Kimani Gray was excluded as a source of the DNA.

The NYPD recovered fingerprints from the gun, but they did not match those of Gray, nor was the youth’s palm print on the gun. The city is objecting, characterizing the disclosures as “argumentative interpretations of forensic reports.”

“We have no comment while this litigation is pending,” city Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci told The News.

Miniriots erupted in East Flatbush after the shooting, leading to property damage to stores and arrests.

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson declined to present the fatal shooting to a grand jury.

A copy of an explosive deposition taken of respected defense lawyer Anthony Ricco was also made public last week. Ricco represented a teen, Jayquan Frazier, who was with Gray the night of the shooting and was being questioned by prosecutors and investigators.

Ricco said there were times during the questioning when “I thought clarification was needed, particularly when I felt that the interrogating officer was misrepresenting what Mr. Frazier had said ...,” according to a transcript.

“It had to do with, ‘Did you see Kimani Gray’s hands near his waistline?’” Ricco recalled. “And he said, ‘Yes,’ and then of course they moved away, they asked about school or something else.

“So I think my follow-up question ... was ‘When did you see his hands near his waistline and what was he doing?’ (and) I think Jayquan said he was trying to pull his pants up as he was trying to climb over the fence.”