Officer shouted racial slur before 2nd cop killed black man :: 07/16/2012

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - An officer named in a police-brutality lawsuit shouted a racial slur at a black man before another officer killed him, a lawyer for the dead man's family said.

City Police Officer Steven Hart can be heard on audiotapes using the N-word as he stood Nov. 19 at the apartment window of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., 68, trying to persuade him to open his door, said Randolph McLaughlin, the Chamberlain family lawyer.

"He's outside, at the window, tapping, tapping, tapping, and you hear him say, 'Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Chamberlain. Stop. We have to talk, n-,' " McLaughlin said Thursday.

Chamberlain, a retired Westchester County corrections officer and former U.S. Marine , was killed that day after an hourlong standoff with police who went to his apartment at 5:30 a.m. when his medical alert alarm went off, apparently by accident. Family members said Chamberlain, who had a chronic heart condition, told police he had no emergency and that he was all right, but officers insisted on coming inside.

"Here you have a white officer outside a predominantly African-American housing unit, using the N- word," McLaughlin said. "What is going on in the White Plains Police Department?"