New Rochelle Police Shot Man Over Fruit, Family Alleges.

I am hes­i­tant to speak on the argu­ments being used around this, anoth­er police killing of anoth­er Black man. As a peo­ple, we must rec­og­nize the soci­ety in which we live-that it is vio­lent­ly anti-Black. As such, there can be no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for steal­ing any­thing, regard­less of the val­ue or how jus­ti­fied we may feel about tak­ing some­thing to sat­is­fy hunger or thirst.
We must rec­og­nize that ask­ing for some­thing to eat is always a bet­ter approach if the prop­er­ty own­er says no; that answer must be the end of the con­ver­sa­tion. The own­er of the prop­er­ty has every right to say no.
On the issue of police and their reac­tion, speak­ing about American police vio­lence is like shout­ing in the wind. Either the Black com­mu­ni­ty is going to rise up and put an end to police vio­lence, all forty-one mil­lion of us, or we are going to keep pump­ing our fists and yelling at this monster.
Neither will bring change. As the great Jamaica Barrister and Politician Norman Manley once said. “There can be no vic­to­ry with­out a few bro­ken skulls.”
No bul­ly will stop bul­ly­ing sim­ply because you yell and complain.……There is only one way to deal with bullies.

New Rochelle police shot man over fruit, fam­i­ly alleges.

The fam­i­ly of the 37-year-old man New Rochelle police shot this week called Friday for wit­ness­es to come for­ward to piece togeth­er the events that left him on life sup­port. A police detec­tive shot Jarrell Garris, a New Rochelle native, on Monday while attempt­ing to arrest Garris after accus­ing him of steal­ing food, said New York State Police, who are inves­ti­gat­ing the shoot­ing. Some footage pre­ced­ing the shoot­ing has been released by the New Rochelle Police Department. On a swel­ter­ing sum­mer after­noon, Rev. Kevin McCall, Garris’ fam­i­ly spokesper­son, told reporters the shoot­ing was over a banana and grapes Garris ate.

The fam­i­ly held an emo­tion­al press con­fer­ence in the shade, sur­round­ed by dozens of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, many of whom knew Garris and his fam­i­ly for years. Garris went by ”Jarrel” on his Facebook page, while some fam­i­ly mem­bers used the spelling ”Jarrell” and law enforce­ment used ”Jerrel.” “If you had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet my son, you would love him,” said Garris’ father, Raymond Fowler, 58, out­side St. Catherine A.M.E. Zion Church, just feet from where police shot Garris in the street on Lincoln Avenue. “To know my son is to love him.” Earlier on Friday, some fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers said Garris had died, but lat­er Fowler, a long­time New Rochelle native, clar­i­fied that Garris is on life support. 
Garris was in the area to pick up his son and take him back to Greensboro, North Carolina, where Garris had been liv­ing for less than a year. They planned to head home Monday evening. But at around 4:30 p.m. on Monday, police respond­ed to reports of a per­son steal­ing food at New Rochelle Farms, a gro­cery store on Lincoln and North avenues. Bodycam footage released by the New Rochelle Police Department shows police offi­cers Kari Bird and Gabrielle Chavarry, along with Det. Steven Conn, con­fronting Garris on Lincoln Avenue and ask­ing about stolen food.

State Police released the offi­cers’ names Wednesday, and all three offi­cers have been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing the results of the State Police inves­ti­ga­tion. Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah’s Office is also inves­ti­gat­ing the shoot­ing. In the body­cam footage, Garris doesn’t appear to respond to the offi­cers. Bird and Chavarry fol­low him across the street while a third offi­cer, Conn, approach­es. The video then shows Garris in a scuf­fle with the offi­cers as they attempt to place him under arrest. In the phys­i­cal strug­gle, Garris reach­es in the direc­tion of one of the officer’s hol­stered firearms, the video shows, though it’s unclear which offi­cer he reached toward. He then top­ples over a female offi­cer, and one offi­cer shouts, “He’s got a gun, he’s got a gun,” the video shows. In a press release Monday night, the police depart­ment said Garris reached at the officer’s gun “in an attempt to remove it from the hol­ster.” The video pro­vid­ed by the police depart­ment ends before Conn shoots his weapon. It is unclear why the video ends, and the USA Today Network has filed a Freedom of Information request for the full body cam­era footage from all three offi­cers. While Conn attempt­ed to arrest Garris, he fired one round from his depart­ment-issued firearm and hit Garris, said State Police. Bodycam video shows a hand­cuff on Garris’ right hand dur­ing the strug­gle. No addi­tion­al rounds were fired, State Police said. Officers used life­sav­ing tech­niques, State Police said. Garris was ulti­mate­ly trans­port­ed to Westchester Medical Center. He was in a coma in the days fol­low­ing the shooting.

Jarrel Garris’ family calls for full video, witnesses

Garris’ fam­i­ly, through their spokesper­son McCall, dis­put­ed the events police recount­ed. They called for an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion with Attorney General Letitia James and for a full video to be released of the encounter.“You want to be trans­par­ent, release the whole video to show the pic­tures of the truth,” McCall told reporters. “The video does not lie. This young man should be here today. His death sen­tence should not be his eat­ing fruit, grapes, and a banana.” In the mean­time, the fam­i­ly also request­ed help from wit­ness­es of the shooting.