NEW YORK (CMC) – A grand jury has refused to re-indict a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer who last year shot dead a Jamaican youth in his own home.

Police officer Richard Haste was indicted in June 2012, four months after the shooting death of Ramarley Graham, 18, in his Bronx, New York home on February 2, 2012.

But, in May, Bronx Supreme Court Justice Steven Barrett tossed the case, stating that an assistant district attorney wrongly instructed the grand jury to disregard whether other cops had told Haste that Graham was armed.

Barrett gave the Bronx District Attorney’s Office leave to re-indict Haste, but the second grand jury on Wednesday decided against a manslaughter charge. Haste had testified before the grand jury the day before.

Graham’s family attorney, Jeffrey Emdin, described the decision as “a punch in the gut. We feel it’s an injustice,” he told reporters. “We feel that this officer is getting away with murder, it’s a really, really sad day,” he added.

“The family is terribly disappointed.  They think it’s a travesty, and we are going to be pursuing a federal investigation.”

Writing on the social network, Facebook, Graham’s  mother, Constance Malcolm, said she “cannot believe the system is allowing Richard Haste “who killed by son in the bathroom of his own home to go home to his family and (be) able to look into their faces and smile. My son is dead, and this man is walking free.”

But Stuart London, Haste’s lawyer, said he was happy with the grand jury’s decision.

“I’m unbelievably impressed with the courage this Bronx grand jury had — to keep an open mind and, in the face of such horrible tragedy, to be as fair to my client,” he told reporters.

Protesters have accused the NYPD of racial profiling in Graham’s death, comparing the case to that of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old black youth, who was fatally shot by neighbourhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, in Sanford, Florida.