Charlotte is holding a trial with national attention. Way before Ferguson, a Charlotte Police officer shot an “unarmed” Black man 10 times at 2:45 AM in a rural part of Mecklenburg County (where rich white people who want no contact with black people live).
In response to the deceased knocking on a door at 2:30 AM and freaking out the woman inside, three officers in three cars respond. This is a dashcam video from one of the officers who didn’t shoot.
First, you can get a sense of how rural the area is. A couple of the bridges he goes over are for the fairly recently completed I-485, the source of the new subdivisions in the area. 2:47:30 is the key point to watch.
Contrary to the baseless accusations of the police union attorney, the suspect is not drunk, has no drugs in his system – he had just crashed his car and was trying to get help from nearby houses.
*** additional context ***
The City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County have consolidated many government functions as the City is the bulk of the population, employment and economic activity
After a 25 year delay, the final portion of I-485 was opened a few months ago (the shooting was two years ago). Notice the thin light green line – that is the county line. This is about as far from Charlotte as you can be and still be in the county. Police likely rarely go into this area. As the “norm” in this area, everything is subdivisions with only one or two ways in and out. You will be noticed if you drive into the subdivision.
If you want to follow along at home, at 2:45:25 am, he is turning right from Plaza Road Extension onto Reedy Creek Road, just after crossing I-485. The crosswalk at 2:47:20 is at the entrance to a dead end street called Reedy Creek Pool. The shooting is happening Next to the Bradfield Farms Gym and Racquet Club.
The video begins on North Sharon Amity Road. I’m pretty sure this is the black policeman. They knew the person they were looking for is a young black male. There is an “unwritten rule” that male policemen don’t touch women suspects, and white policemen don’t touch black suspects. They call for the designated minority police officer to handle the situation. Unfortunately for Mr Ferrell, he ran first. That explains why car #2 was waiting out in the street – he didn’t want to go to the suspect without a black man in blue on the scene.
As far as the car accident and how he wound up where he was, those details are vague. The only detail I found so far is he “walked about half a mile”. He had to crawl out the back window but lost his cell phone.
The first grand jury refused to sign off on an indictment, and the second grand jury was the result of national media attention.
Amazing. Is life that cheap today? No warning, no alerts, just all those shots for a guy who approached unarmed. I don’t understand why he started to run, but we only have this view. Even at that, he was killed for having an accident – simply amazing.
We train the Police in military methods. The military kills people and blows things up. So now the Police, instead of protecting and serving, kill people and blow things up. Surprised?
This is the first video that the jury saw – it isn’t the only one.
I’m not sure I understand the tactics here – being a rural area (I’ll try to add a map), three cars are responding and it takes a while to get there. You’re in the third car to arrive – car #1 is around the corner actively engaging the suspect (who had not done anything illegal, albeit not smart). Car three pulls up behind two, who is waiting before “going in”. Having two more police cars arriving undoubtedly caused him to panic, but running toward the officers was the worst thing to do.
The family has been given $2.25 million for this. I expect the police officer who did the shooting (all of the shots were from one gun) will not be convicted.
I also do not expect the city to burn – at the time of the shooting, the mayor and police chief were black. The new police chief is black – one of the three officers was black (He said he never would have considered shooting). There is nobody to “get”. The new mayor – appointed by a majority black city council – is white, but he wasn’t in government at the time of the shooting.
> “The family has been given $2.25 million for this.”
Have to raise taxes of borrow that from the Chinese so that the guilty people are not held responsible, only the taxpayers will pay.
The police office took the stand yesterday to cry about what a hard life he has had, his wife and children would cry and his puppy dog would die. His explanation of why he shot 8 times after the guy was already on the ground was he thought the gun wasn’t firing. He heard the victim say “shoot me! Shoot me!”, which oddly is not on the video. Neither are the instructions he shouted to stop coming toward the officers.
On the other side, the family’s position is that the office didn’t identify himself as police. Three marked police cars and men uniforms on a dead end street at 2:45 AM might have been a clue. The audio might be deceptive in the degree to which he was being blinded by lights in his face.
>”We train the Police in military methods. The military kills people and blows things up. So now the Police, instead of protecting and serving, kill people and blow things up. Surprised? ”
EXACTLY ! What Briand said . I have read where the Po Po now confiscate money they find on your car and on your person. ( Is that how you say it if its in your own pocket) ?
People do not trust the polise anymore, You just don’t know what you are going to get if all of a sudden you are pulled over. Best to avoid contact with the po po.
parrott
Several years ago, I wrote that one of the reasons for our prolonged occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan was to train and improve the tactics for subduing a civilian population.
Probably the main reason I cooled to the idea of moving to Salisbury (NC) was sitting in the parking lot at the deserted Mall talking to my real estate agent and watching someone driving one of those surplus military armored transport vehicles around the parking lot. The only slightly plausible scenario where that could be needed is Salisbury is the location of a major VA hospital. As we all know, retired White Christian veterans are the most likely to commit terrorist acts.
Here is the audio of the 911 call
http://www.wsoctv.com/videos/news/911-call-cmpd-officer-involved-shooting/vCCg6t/
The single most puzzling thing to me is her statement she went to the front door (at 2:30 am) and opened the door because she “thought it was her husband”. What kind of marriage does she have? He doesn’t have a key to his own house and she doesn’t know where he is?
Kerrick turned off his dashcam
http://www.salisburypost.com/2015/08/14/prosecutors-challenge-kerricks-statement/
Now we are into premeditation territory
Over in Durham, there was just a verdict in an opposite case. A black convicted felon was stopped by a policeman, and the policeman was shot in the leg. Durham is a predominantly black city, although it also has Wake Forest University and the Durham Medical Center.
The jury found the guy not guilty on the theory the policeman might have shot himself. The comments on the story suggest there are unhinged police or police supporters ready to initiate a race war.
http://www.wral.com/defense-claims-racism-in-durham-officer-s-shooting-trial/14815374/
By the way, the policeman is black
Closing arguments are tomorrow. The fact that the defense let their client testify suggests they expect a not guilty verdict. The prosecutor will be asking police in the future to testify. There is no reason to try hard for a conviction. The “family” has their $2 million. These kinds of judgements are part of where other big cities were drawn into the abyss. With poor victims and sympathetic juries, the lawsuit lottery takes off. More lawyers filing more cases draws in more lawyers and more cases.
Here are the jury instructions
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article31537970.ece/BINARY/READ:%20Official%20instructions%20to%20the%20jury
The issue the jury has been told to focus on is whether Kerrick fired in Self Defense, because he reasonably feared death or “great bodily harm” to himself or the other officers.
This is entirely “state of mind” based at what the officer knew at the moment he decided to fire his gun. Kerrick did not know if Ferrell had been drinking or using drugs. He didn’t know if the person had a criminal history. He didn’t know there had been a car accident. He didn’t know what Ferrill was doing or if he was angry with his girlfriend – most of the things said by the police union attorney are inflammatory nonsense to misdirect attention from what was at least an unnecessary killing.
The jury is deadlocked with 8-4 – all 12 jurors have to agree. The jury instructions strongly hint that the jury can accept the idea that Kerrick fired not because he was in danger, but he was protecting another officer. This is ending in mistrial. The prosecution didn’t want a conviction. A mistrial diffuses the likelihood of racial trouble. If the dead guy was a long term resident, local people might be more upset. Charlotte has become a center for heroin trafficking by black “outsiders”. Even though nobody has offered any evidence connecting Ferrell to drugs, people are going to assume that. He has no job, no family, came here from Florida and is driving around at 2 am on the freeway. Some people will view this shooting as “sending a message” to blacks to stay out of Charlotte and especially the white areas. Federal civil rights charges seem probable.
Mistrial declared. I’m not positive, but I think the 8-4 vote was for acquittal. Getting 12 people to agree on a guilty verdict will never happen.
All weekend available for protests…
Despite the best efforts of TV and newspapers to incite violence, there was no violence about the verdict.
http://www.wcnc.com/story/news/local/randall-kerrick-trial/2015/08/21/kerrick-trial-protesters-blocking-4th-street/32137825/
Note that the “die in” #blacklivesmatter protestors are all leftish white kids sansaclue posing for the cameras. This is not Baltimore or Ferguson in so many ways. The native blacks and the decent immigrants fleeing the urban nightmare cities fear the black and Mexican drug gaags more than they fear the police or white people . Even if the jury was all black, I doubt there would be a conviction. Nobody wants to escalate racial tensions further, the “family” got paid off, everyone is happy. I do wonder if his “fiancé” is getting part of the money…
The one black male juror who voted for conviction turns out to have a law enforcement background.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article31912080.html
I agree with pretty much everything he said. It is very significant that he is an “outsider” who moved to Charlotte from Boston for retirement
NC prosecutors talked to jurors and concluded they will never get 12 people to agree on conviction. You can indict a ham sandwich, but the jury doesn’t have to swallow it.
The case is over unless the Feds want to bring a Civil Rights case