COMMENTARY (in 200 words or less)
No one who’s been paying attention should be surprised that CMPD Officer Randall Kerrick won’t be going to prison for the shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office announced on Friday that the voluntary manslaughter charge against Kerrick would be dropped.
In the United States these days, “oops” has become a winning defense for cops who kill unarmed people who should not have been killed.
I can’t blame Cooper for choosing not to retry Kerrick. Just as his office noted in a letter to Mecklenburg District Attorney Andrew Murray, a second trial, in all probability, would end just as the first one did – with a hung jury.
As Kerrick begins his new life as a free man (and possibly as a working CMPD officer again), the question that lingers is the one posed in The Charlotte Observer by Moses Wilson, one of four juror who voted to convict: “What did Jonathan Ferrell DO to warrant death? 10 shots.”
Let’s talk about it. What’s your take?
