A Brooklyn, N.Y., federal judge has ruled that police officers were justified in arresting 16-year-old Kimani Gray as the teen lay in the street dying from gunshot wounds suffered at the hands of police.
According to the New York Daily News, in the ruling, the judge effectively scrapped two claims in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Kimani’s family after he was killed by police on March 9, 2013.
However, the family’s lawyer told the news site that the Monday ruling does not mean that the case against New York City and its police officers is over. The claims that cops unreasonably used deadly force by shooting the teen seven times, and inflicted pain and suffering by handcuffing him as he lay wounded in the middle of the street, are still up for trial.
The report notes that the judge said she had to weigh the Gray family’s claim that the 16-year-old was unarmed against the claim of lawyers for the city who insist that the teen pointed a firearm at officers.
The officers involved in Kimani’s death did not face any criminal charges after the Brooklyn district attorney declined to press charges. In fact, about a year after the teen’s death, Sgt. Mourad Mourad, one of the officers involved in the fatal shooting, was selected to be honored as Cop of the Year by the New York City Police Department’s Muslim Officers Society. However, because of community pressure, Mourad declined the award and did not attend the ceremony.