Man seeking help after North Carolina car crash shot by police

Is there sadness or remorse in police officer Randall Kerrick's expression after killing an unarmed man who was seeking help? This case is reminiscent of the Trayvon Martin case: a young, unarmed black man in a white neighborhood arouses deadly suspicion.
College student Jonathan Ferrell before his car accident and being shot dead by Randall Kerrick.

N.C. police shoot unarmed man who survived car accident
Reuters
September 15, 2013

(Reuters) - Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, shot dead an unarmed man who was running toward police officers and may have been just trying to get help after crashing his car, authorities said.

A police officer has been charged with voluntary manslaughter for Saturday's shooting, and an attorney for the victim's family said on Sunday he believed race played a role in the death of Jonathan Ferrell, 24, who was black.

"If Mr. Farrell was not black or brown, wouldn't they have asked him a few questions before showering him with bullets?" said attorney Chris Chestnut, who said he would request all police evidence from the shooting.

Farrell, seeking help after the accident, knocked on a door in a predominantly white neighborhood, Chestnut said.

A woman called the 911 emergency operator after Ferrell began knocking insistently on her front door about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said.

The woman, who immediately closed the door on Ferrell after seeing it was not her husband, was likely unaware he had just crawled out of his wrecked car in nearby woods, police said.

Three police officers arrived, finding Ferrell a short distance from the woman's house. As soon as the officers got out of their vehicles, Ferrell started running toward them, police said.

One officer unsuccessfully fired a Taser at Ferrell, and he kept running. Randall Kerrick, another officer, then shot Ferrell several times with his service weapon, killing him, police said.

Police found Ferrell's wrecked car later in the morning.

The police department has placed all three officers on administrative leave while they investigate the shooting. Detectives charged Kerrick with voluntary manslaughter on Saturday.

"Our investigation has shown that Officer Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter," the police department said in a statement.

Ferrell was a former football player for Florida A&M University in Tallahassee who had recently moved to Charlotte with his fiancee to continue his studies at Johnson C. Smith University, Chestnut said.

Ferrell was on the Florida A&M roster in the 2009 and 2010 seasons, playing safety, the university said in a statement.

Chestnut, based in Atlanta, represents the family of Florida A&M drum major Robert Champion, who was killed in a hazing incident in 2011. Twelve former band members have been charged with manslaughter, and the family is suing the university for wrongful death.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Jackie Frank)

(Reporting By Jonathan Allen; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

Former Culpeper, Va., police officer charged with murder was hired despite objections

Former Culpeper, Va., police officer charged with murder was hired despite objections
By Justin Jouvenal
June 8, 2012

A former Culpeper, Va., police officer charged with killing a Sunday school teacher was hired despite the objections of superiors who said his excessive drinking and attitude made him a poor choice, prosecution filings show.

Daniel Harmon-Wright, 32, had also been disciplined as an officer, including once for forcing his way into a home and brandishing his weapon without probable cause or a warrant, according to a prosecution motion in opposition to his request for bond.

The details emerged Friday as the Gainesville resident was granted a $100,000 bond by a Culpeper judge. He is facing a murder charge and three other charges in the shooting of Patricia Cook, 54, of Culpeper while responding to a suspicious-person call in February.

“Two officials after a full background [check] recommended that Mr. Harmon-Wright not be hired as a police officer,” special prosecutor James Fisher told reporters after the hearing. “That was, of course, overturned.”

Harmon-Wright says he shot the woman in self-defense, opening fire after she trapped his fingers in the window of her Jeep Wrangler and began driving erratically across the parking lot of a Catholic school in Culpeper, according to his motion for bond.

Harmon-Wright claims he fired more shots into the back of the Wrangler after it made a left turn because a sunscreen blocked Cook’s front windshield and she posed a danger to pedestrians.

“She couldn’t see where she was going, and she was accelerating on a residential street,” said Daniel L. Hawes, Harmon-Wright’s attorney.

A photograph included in the prosecution’s motion shows three bullet holes in the driver’s seat of Cook’s Wrangler, including one in the headrest.

Harmon-Wright, a five-year veteran of the force, was hired in 2006. During a background check, Harmon-Wright told police officials that he had been disciplined for excessive drinking in the Marine Crops and had driven under the influence of alcohol three months before his interview, according to prosecution filings. It’s not clear why Harmon-Wright was hired despite the objections of two police officials.

Bethany Sullivan, Harmon-Wright’s mother and an administrative assistant to the former Culpeper police chief, has been charged with forging Harmon-Wright’s entrance exam for the Town of Culpeper and one of his annual reviews.

Harmon-Wright was disciplined in connection with a 2011 incident in which he chased a 15-year-old boy after a suspicious-person report, prosecution filings show. The officer started banging on the door of a home after receiving a tip that the boy lived there.

When a woman answered, Harmon-Wright demanded that she leave, prosecutors said in the filing. Harmon-Wright entered the house and brandished his gun in the face of the woman’s 18-year-old son, according to the filing.

It turned out that the boy he was chasing was not in the home and had not committed a crime, but was on his way to school, according to the filings.

Tattoo in sheriff's deputy clique may have celebrated shootings, sources say

Tattoo in sheriff's deputy clique may have celebrated shootings, sources say
By Robert Faturechi
Los Angeles Times
May 9, 2012

The investigation into a secret clique within the Los Angeles County sheriff's elite gang unit has uncovered allegations that members had matching tattoos of a gun-toting skeleton, which deputies would modify to celebrate their involvement in a shooting, according to sources close to the internal probe.

One deputy, who has admitted belonging to a clique called the "Jump Out Boys," has identified about half a dozen other deputies as members, one source confirmed. Those men are expected to be summoned for interviews with internal affairs investigators, the source said.

Suspicion about the group's existence was sparked several weeks ago when a supervisor discovered a pamphlet laying out the group's creed, which promoted aggressive policing and portrayed officer shootings in a positive light.

The pamphlet was found in the vehicle used by the deputy who acknowledged his association with the clique, according to sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the ongoing investigation.

Days after The Times reported on the discovery of the pamphlet, the captain of the division gathered his deputies for a private briefing, during which he told them they had shamed the department by forming the group and urged those responsible to identify themselves, a source with knowledge of the unit's inner workings said.

At some point, one deputy came forward, and he has since named about six others, the source said.

Internal affairs investigators are trying to determine whether the deputies violated Sheriff's Department rules or committed serious misconduct.

The deputies under scrutiny all work on the Gang Enforcement Team, a unit divided into two platoons of relatively autonomous deputies whose job is to target neighborhoods where gang violence is high, locate armed gang members and take their guns away.

The design of the tattoo, confirmed by two sources, includes an oversize skull with a wide, toothy grimace and glowing red eyes. A bandanna wraps around the skull, imprinted with the letters "OSS" — representing Operation Safe Streets, the name of the larger unit that the Gang Enforcement Team is part of. A bony hand clasps a revolver. Investigators suspect that smoke is tattooed over the gun's barrel after a member is involved in a shooting.

To the left of the skull are two playing cards — an ace and an eight — apparently an allusion to the "dead man's" poker hand, sources said.

One source compared the notion of modifying the tattoo after a shooting to a celebratory "high five."

Celebrating shootings and sporting matching tattoos were hallmarks of anti-gang officers in the LAPD's troubled Rampart Division in the late 1990s.

A corruption scandal erupted after one disgraced officer implicated himself and others in covering up bad shootings, planting evidence, falsifying reports and perjuring themselves to rid the streets of gang members and drug dealers.

Former Cop Suspected in Shootings Dies

Former Cop Suspected in Shootings Dies
By DANNY ROBBINS, AP
Dec. 23, 2008

...A former Utah state trooper suspected in a series of roadway shootings earlier this week died on Christmas Eve, a hospital official said. Dallas police said they believe Brian Smith, above, killed at least one of the victims in a series of apparent random rush-hour shootings near Dallas. Smith shot and injured himself after a standoff with police.

The 37-year-old had been in critical condition on life support from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police say he shot himself in the head after a brief standoff early Tuesday, more than six hours after the roadway shooting spree ended...

Dallas police Lt. Craig Miller said authorities were working to confirm that Smith was the gunman in separate shooting deaths minutes apart Monday on a Garland street and a Dallas interstate.

Earlier Wednesday, police shut down the freeway to re-examine the scene of one of several of the shootings.

Officials said both police departments were waiting for ballistics tests to come back for possible matches of bullet casings...

Warrants for Smith's arrest had been issued in the Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, where authorities have obtained evidence linking him to two robberies in the past eight days. Both incidents involved thefts in which purses were stolen from women in vehicles parked at businesses near where Smith lived.

Police have tied Smith to the incidents through witness identification and video of him using a credit card belonging to one of the victims, Southlake police spokesman Mike Bedrich said.

Smith moved to Keller with his wife and children last spring, just months after his conduct came under scrutiny from the Utah Highway Patrol. His peace officer certification was revoked after he went on a drinking binge and threatened to kill himself.

In Utah, where Smith's problems as a trooper are just now coming to light, he's remembered as a good father who never lost his temper and coached youth soccer and basketball.

"This is a shock for everyone who knows Brian," said Michael Peterson, Smith's former bishop in the Mormon church. "Obviously, he was struggling with some things. But the Brian Smith that everyone around here knows would never have done any of these things."