“There was absolutely nothing else I could have done”
by digby
If you want to know what is driving these Black Lives Matter protesters to act up, you need look no further than this:
Defiant, sometimes choking back tears, a Charlotte police officer testified on Friday that he had had no choice but to shoot an unarmed 24-year-old car crash victim on a darkened road, despite never seeing anything in the man’s hands.
“He had a good chance to get my gun from me and take it from me,” the police officer, Randall Kerrick, who was suspended without pay after the fatal shooting, told his defense lawyer. “There was absolutely nothing else I could have done.”
Officer Kerrick is on trial for voluntary manslaughter for the killing of Jonathan Ferrell in the early hours of Sept. 14, 2013. Mr. Ferrell, who was black, had sought help at a house in the Bradfield Farms subdivision near Charlotte’s eastern edge after climbing out of the wreckage of his fiancée’s car. But the woman who owned the house, fearing that Mr. Ferrell was a burglar, called the police.
Three officers responded to the scene, expecting to find a burglary in progress. But only Officer Kerrick, who is white, pulled out his gun. He fired 12 shots at Mr. Ferrell, hitting him 10 times and continuing to shoot after both men had fallen to the ground.
The defense called Officer Kerrick to the stand on Thursday, in the second week of the trial. Over two days, he explained repeatedly that he had felt he had to shoot Mr. Ferrell almost immediately after arriving on the scene because he believed he posed a potential threat. In an indirect video taken by another officer’s dashboard camera, Mr. Ferrell, barefoot and in a light green shirt, can be seen walking, then running, shortly after the police arrive.
Officer Kerrick testified that he did not fire any warning shots or order Mr. Ferrell to show his hands.
“I gave him loud verbal commands to stop and get on the ground, and if he could see I was a police officer, I would think he would obey those commands,” he said.
“He had a good chance to take my gun away from me?” What the hell is that?
This tells you what black people are facing every day in this country. Some cop rolls up sees a black man and shoots him. And then he excuses himself by saying the unarmed man could have gotten his gun away from him at some point so he needed to shoot him 10 times.
This is the one of the rare occasions when a cop is put on trial without video. And it happened, obviously, when they realized that the poor victim was just some dude who’d been in a car accident and was looking for some help.
But you have to love this. When the prosecutor brought up the inconsistencies in the officer’s testimony he replied:
“Ma’am, this was taken just a little bit after I was in a fight for my life,” Officer Kerrick said. “I’m sorry if there are a few inconsistencies.”
Except he wasn’t in a fight for his life, was he? The man was an unarmed car accident victim. But apparently this man still believes he was fighting for his life. There’s your problem — police believe that everyone they encounter is trying to kill them. Particularly if they’re black.
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