Race a factor in shooting of black cop?

BY MELISSA GRACE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, January 28th 2008, 4:00 AM


The black Mount Vernon cop shot to death by Westchester County police officers had run into a government building and called for backup before he was killed Friday, his pastor said Sunday.

"He went in and asked for assistance," said the Rev. Franklyn Richardson of Mount Vernon's Grace Baptist Church.

"The police who came ended up killing him."

Richardson also said the slain off-duty cop, Officer Christopher Ridley, 23, was given no medical attention for as long as 20 minutes after the shooting.

"This is an outrageous execution of a young African-American man who'd chosen to do the right thing," Richardson said after a jammed memorial service at his church.

"This same situation would not have occurred if he was not African-American."

By all accounts, Ridley had stopped to help after spotting an assault outside a homeless shelter as he drove through downtown White Plains.

The White Plains cops could not confirm Richardson's claim that Ridley had gone into the Westchester County Department of Social Services for help - and a law enforcement source suggested the family had "misunderstood" what they were told happened immediately before the shooting.

Ridley's father, Stanley, the church custodian, and his mother and stepfather, Felita and Ron Bouche of New Jersey, attended the service, but said they were too devastated to speak.

"Christopher died a hero," said Ridley family friend Danielle Scholar, her voice breaking in sorrow. "We are sad but extremely proud of his display of courage."

The slain officer had spent summers working at the church and continued to mentor youth there after he became a cop in 2006 - something he had dreamed of since he was a kid, Scholar said.

"Always, his shoes were polished and he was proud to be a police officer," Richardson said.

The pastor was joined by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who demanded that the cops be suspended and called for an independent investigation.

"They've done it again," Sharpton said of the shooting, likening it to the 2006 slaying of Sean Bell, a black bridegroom shot dead by cops in Queens.

Ridley's family and Sharpton met with police and prosecutors in Westchester for more than two hours on Saturday.

Sharpton said they were told cops fired nine bullets. Of these, four to five slugs struck the cop in the back of his head, his chest, hip and wrist, Richardson said.

County officials have not explained why the Westchester cops who responded to the scene fired at Ridley, who was armed but not in uniform.

A witness said Ridley and a uniformed Westchester County officer chased a mugger, and that Ridley had tackled the mugger and had him on the ground when the officers arrived, according to WABC-TV.

"I heard them saying, freeze, freeze, freeze," and then the cops fired, the witness, who was not identified, said.

Richardson said yesterday there were four cops involved. At least one of the responding officers was black, a law enforcement source confirmed.

All the officers involved will be placed on administrative duty when they return to work, another law enforcement source said.

mgrace@nydailynews.com

Race a factor in shooting of black cop?

Heard about this case when it broke...

it was initially reported that cops shot a suspect who was fleeing the scene of a crime.


then the truth started coming out......

sad stuff, I really hate law enforcement officials as a rule...too many of these "accidental" shootings of black people