I heard about this in the morning. Read the
report and thought about it for a while.
Jonathan Ferrell had an accident wherein his car went off the road. He got out of the car and since he apparently had no cell phone (or it was dead, we do not know) walked until he found "civilization" and approached a house.
Ferrell apparently walked about a half-mile to the nearest house and was "banging on the door viciously" to attract attention, Monroe said. Thinking it was her husband coming home late from work, the woman who lives there opened the door. When she saw Ferrell, she shut it and called police about 2:30 a.m., Monroe said.
Firstly. This woman. Is her husband in the habit of coming home at 2-3AM "viciously banging on the door"?
Does that sound right to you? Does her husband often forget his keys? Does he not have a cell phone which he can call his wife and say "sorry dear, I forgot my keys again, could you come down and let me in?"
Secondly this woman is in the habit of simply opening her door at 2:30 AM to a person "viciously banging on the door"?
Thirdly, your going to tell me that at no point from when she answered the door and shut the door did Jonathan say anything to the effect of "I had an accident and need help"? or simply "help"?
This is a southern boy. Southern boys are known to say "ma'am". He didn't say that?
She saw his black face and decided she was being robbed shut the door (never mind that an actual robber would have pushed her in the
minute that door was unlocked) hits the alarm and calls the police.
So far no crime but very questionable story from the woman.
Officers responding to the breaking and entering call found Ferrell a short distance from the home, police said. As they approached him, Ferrell ran toward the officers, who tried to stop him with a Taser. Police said he continued to run toward them when officer Randall Kerrick fired his gun, hitting Ferrell several times. Ferrell died at the scene.
Now lets get something clear. There was no "breaking" and there was no "entering". So the woman in this case, IF she made such a claim made a false claim. Knocking on a door is not "breaking and entering" and being scared of the black man at your door is not "breaking and entering".
So this report (likely false, like in the case of Trayvon) lead the police to come to the home.
Now they reach the scene and the "robber" is still in the area even though his "victim" slammed the door in his face and sounded the alarm. Now any actual burglar or "break and enterer" would have left the premises because the risk of getting caught is way to high. But our actual victim, having done nothing wrong was still looking for help. However, since he's been deemed a criminal.
Now the police said they approached Ferrell (who again, did nothing wrong) who they claimed "ran towards them".
Note that there is no statement of whether Ferrell was saying anything. Note they say nothing about whether he was waving his arms. You know, the things people trying to get help for themselves are likely to do.
Why don't we have these statements?
Where is the statement that Ferrell was coming at them "With what looked like a weapon"?
There is not even the usual "We identified ourselves as police".
So these police, believing the false report assume Ferrell to be a threat and shoot him with a Taser. They claim that Ferrell kept coming.
Now I'm not an expert on the use of Tasers and I don't know what this fellow was wearing, but most of the times that I have seen demonstrations of Tasers, most people go down and tend to spaz out unless they have some kind of protection or are high.
I suppose a toxicology report will determine the latter. Was the "continued to run" actually a response to being tazered while moving?
And still where is the report that the officers, by now, saw a weapon of some kind that justified the use of deadly force?
And certainly a person being Tazered is not generally able to execute commands while they are in pain.
A Tazer is effective up to 15 feet (roughly two body lengths of an average height male). Are you telling me that the officers could not tell that Ferrell was not armed at that distance? Yes it was night time, but we know police roll with flood lights, head lights and flashlights. That does not include any illumination from street and house lights.
At this point Kerrick shoots at Ferrell multiple times.
10 times. Just to be sure, I'm sure.
Police called Ferrell and Kerrick's initial encounter "appropriate and lawful." But in their statement late Saturday, they said "the investigation showed that the subsequent shooting of Mr. Ferrell was excessive" and "Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter."
Much like with Trayvon Martin, the police in this town were unable to come to grips with the fact that a person who had not committed and was not committing any crime whatsoever was dead at the hands of the state and all because they believed that it was OK that the dead black man was assumed to be a criminal.
Only later after pressure mounted did they realize that the usual "our officer thought his life was in danger" line was not going to fly.
I will give the police department credit on this one, they didn't take as long as others to act.
