In the video, projected on a building across from Boston Police Headquarters tonight, Carla Sheffield stood six-stories tall, holding a photo of her dead son, and crying. Burrell Ramsey-White was 26 years old when he was shot dead by Boston Police Officer Mathew Pieroway on Aug. 21, 2012.
“We’re just paying homage to black people in Boston, lives lost at the hands of Boston police. It’s never necessary,” said one of the members of Boston Coalition for Police Accountability. The group led the protest action around 9:30 tonight with We Are Watching (which does protest projections). A dozen people took part. Members of both groups asked to remain anonymous.
The shooting of Ramsey-White was investigated by Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley, who wrote in a 2013 report that Sheffield’s son was driving when he was stopped by two plain-clothes officers in an unmarked car, spoke to them briefly, but allegedly drove off when they ordered him out of the vehicle. The officers chased him at first in their car, and then when he allegedly got out of the car and ran away, they followed him on foot, eventually to 5 Yarmouth Place. There, Conley wrote, Pieroway shot Ramsey-White. Police allege that Ramsey-White had drawn a gun and pointed it at Pieroway.
“Pieroway acted reasonably and lawfully in self-defense,” Conley wrote in 2013. “Accordingly, I conclude criminal charges [against the officer] are not warranted.”
Sheffield declined to comment last night, citing a pending lawsuit against the city. But speaking at a 2014 public meeting about police use of force, she said, “My son stood with his hands in the air, nine people looking at him, as he—an 8-year-old girl heard my son saying, ‘No! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’ The police officer shot my son.”
Related: Carla Sheffield spoke about the killing of her son in this 2015 interview.
Photos here copyright Greg Cook.
