NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Isa Muhammad is scheduled to appear before a Grand Jury today in the police-involved shooting death of Kamal Flowers. Police Officer Alec McKenna shot and killed Flowers on the night of June 5th, according to a statement he published yesterday on his Facebook page.
“i am supposed to speak to the grand jury about the killing of kamal flowers, because i was the only other person that knows the truth of what happened that night,” wrote Muhammad.
Last Thursday, Muhammad was arrested on minor drug charges dating as far back as 2019. Many family, friends and advocates on behalf of Kamal Flowers are crying foul.
“The timing of the arrest of Mr. Muhammad and the decision of the Westchester DA to proceed with criminal charges against him is dubious at best,” said Minister Mark McLean, President of the NAACP New Rochelle Branch. “This is a prime example of why Governor Cuomo has failed the Black community and the entire city of New Rochelle by not only refusing to appoint the New York State Attorney General to investigate this case, but indeed refusing to acknowledge this case all together.”
According to a New Rochelle police spokesperson, Muhammad was arrested on October 22nd and charged with unlawful possession of marijuana 2nd degree, criminal possession of marijuana 4th degree, criminal sale controlled substance 3rd degree.
“Police are looking for a scapegoat, to justify the killing,” added Muhammad. “So they are trying anything to kill my credentials.”
Richard St. Paul, who represents the Flowers family and, with the Grand Jury proceedings represents Muhammad, said he was unable to reach his client for days leading up to Muhammad’s Grand Jury appearance. Police took Muhammad’s phone, according to a family member.
“With New York set to legalize marijuana in months, it is certainly suspicious that the New Rochelle Police department would arrest a key witness in the Kamal Flowers’ shooting by a New Rochelle Police Officer for marijuana possession days before he is set to testify,” said St. Paul.
No community leaders have expressed confidence in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office to pursue the case fairly and independently. The entire New Rochelle City Council, leaders in the Black community including clergy, and state representatives calling for New York State Attorney General Tish James to take over the case.
“As is often said, the DA can indict a ham sandwich and there are more than enough inconsistencies in the police version of events to warrant a full airing of the facts in a trial in open court,” said Jamal Gill, spokesperson for Next Step Forward Initiative.
There is a history of highly questionable behavior by the New Rochelle Police Department and City of New Rochelle since the shooting death of Kamal Flowers.
At a press conference the day after the shooting Mayor Noam Bramson and Police Commissioner Joe Schaller presented a since-disproven narrative of the events leading up to the traffic stop that resulted in the death of Flowers.
The official version of events given by Bramson and Schaller that day has not held up to scrutiny and neither has been willing to issue a statement correcting the record.
Based on an investigation of police records seen by Talk of the Sound, the Mayor and Police Commissioner made numerous false statements on June 6. Bramson and Schaller claimed that police had spent two days looking for the supposedly unknown driver of a mysterious car with out-of-state plates and tinted windows. Schaller associated the vehicle with out-of-state agitators coming to New Rochelle on the day of a non-violent Black Lives Matter rally against police brutality which attracted over two thousand residents to the steps of City Hall.
In fact, the car was rented by Isa Muhammad in Mamaroneck; the police had the license plates for two days and could have easily checked with Enterprise Rental Car to confirm that information. The windows were not tinted.
The Mayor claimed that McKenna did not know who Flowers was and did not know Flowers had a criminal record. Talk of the Sound has concluded that McKenna and another officer, observed Flowers and Muhammad in the car on North Avenue at Lockwood, then followed them for over a mile, past police headquarters and City Hall, inexplicably waiting to pull them over in a dimly lit neighborhood a mile away.
After Governor Andrew Cuomo repealed of “50-a” on June 12, two weeks after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Talk of the Sound immediately filed a Freedom of Information request for the disciplinary records of Alec McKenna. 50-a was a law that exempted police disciplinary records from public disclosure,
These records were readily available, as the NRPD was compiling a summary report on police disciplinary records published weeks later. City officials notified Talk of the Sound they had the records but refused to provide them for a week. City Manager Charles B. Strome later refused to turn over the McKenna records citing a federal lawsuit filed more than a month after the repeal of 50-a and a week after the City acknowledged having the records available.
Talk of the Sound has since filed over 500 separate requests for the disciplinary records of current, retired and deceased New Rochelle police officers — every one of them denied.
Talk of the Sound will be filing an appeal for each of the 500 requests this week and, if the appeals are denied, will file a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in November.
Muhammad described his experience Thursday in starting terms, saying he was “abducted by the new rochelle police”.
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New Rochelle Stonewalls on Release of Disciplinary Records for Cop Who Killed Kamal Flowers
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Absolutely awful, but not surprised. This type of INTIMIDATION, retaliation and harassment by them has been going on for decades. I filed a complaint against them decades ago and they are still harassing me. Like you said. No one does anything to stop them either. With these cell phones and social media they can no longer bu hide their criminal cover up and evil deeds. Stay on them.