Last week, opening statements began in the Jonathan Ferrell trial. That’s right – the Jonathan Ferrell trial. Sure, if you want to get technical, it’s the trial of Randall Kerrick, the CMPD officer who shot and killed the injured and unarmed 24-year-old Ferrell. But we all know how this is going to go down, don’t we? The defense, the media and white people in denial will all try their best, and already have begun, to pin Ferrell’s murder on Ferrell himself.
Of course, spinning this narrative is going to be tricky. He wasn’t holding a toy gun like John Crawford or Tamir Rice. There’s no surveillance footage of him committing petty theft like Mike Brown. His death can’t plausibly be ruled a suicide like Sandra Bland’s. Judging by past cases with these limitations, we can probably expect all the blame to be placed squarely on Ferrell’s physical appearance and how threatening he looked to Kerrick. These tactics have already begun with the following statements, uttered both in and out of court:
“He was in a zombie state.”
“He had the craziest-looking eyes.”
“He was running right at him.”
“The first shots didn’t even faze him.”
There’s a lot of talk about Jonathan smoking marijuana, despite the negative toxicology results. On Aug. 10, Kerrick’s lawyers even threw in a baseless reference to bath salts, an egregious tactic meant just to put the word in jurors’ heads. Several news outlets are reporting on an EMT’s testimony that on the scene of the incident, Kerrick had injuries which could be consistent with being hit in the face. Most fail to mention it was said this injury could also be consistent with falling down.
Oh, and the George Zimmerman defense (“He was trying to grab my gun”) has also been tossed into this victim-blaming shitstorm for good measure.
All over the country, time and time again, victim after victim of police violence gets the same treatment. Police departments all have the same playbook they’ve been using since the Civil Rights era, only now with updated PR tactics for the age of social media and the 24-hour news cycle.
Bless the hearts of anyone who thought this would go differently in Charlotte. Sure, we have a black police chief and North Carolina’s highest vote count for Obama. You know what else we have? Less than a mile from the courthouse where this trial is taking place, we have a disgusting, embarrassing monument that exalts Confederate soldiers for “preserving the Anglo-Saxon civilization of the South.” We also have a group of county commissioners who consider its protection a high priority.
We have shiny, clean new high-rises, but when it comes to racial prejudice and inequality, we still have plenty of dirt.
It speaks volumes that on the night of Ferrell’s death, the two white people he interacted with felt afraid for their lives and immediately escalated the situation, while the two black officers on the scene never felt threatened enough to pull their service weapons.
Lately there have been many “viral videos” of white officers helping black people making their way through social media. They’re real officers doing what many do every day: protecting and serving their communities. I was recently contacted by a CMPD officer who said the majority of police are good people like those in these videos and they just want to do a good job and go home to their families. He said how frustrating it is that only the worst cops get media attention and his entire profession gets judged, maligned and feared due to behavior only a small percentage have exhibited. It’s almost like they’re being profiled and discriminated against.
Perhaps the ability to relate in a small way to how shitty that feels can one day lead to reconciliation between the black and blue communities.
A good start would be for Randall Kerrick to admit he shot Ferrell that night because he was reacting out of fear. Fear based on a preconceived notion that Ferrell was a violent criminal. It wasn’t because Ferrell was a big black superhuman zombie who was high on drugs. It was a total misjudgment of the situation; an unfortunate mistake that prematurely ended the life of yet another young black man, and it was entirely Kerrick’s fault. It would be a phenomenal example of courage and honesty. It would show an intrinsic desire to heal deep and malignant wounds. It would be…about as unlikely as that Confederate monument being jackhammered into dust like it should be. I won’t hold my breath for either.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2015.
1. I’m not sure how you can justify the use of the term “big black zombie defense” when this column was submitted before the State had even rested its case and the defense permitted to being presenting its own.
2. You might also want to review your junior high school civics texts, focusing on that quaint “innocent unless proven guilty” part.
3. You might also want to look up a feature called “The Counted” in The Guardian newspaper – yes these days you have to look to the foreign press to get honest coverage of American news. In “The Counted” you will see that this year police in the US have killed 711 civilians. Only 184 of the 711 are black, yet in the media’s eyes, every cop is out there looking for blacks to kill. The reality is that 343 whites, 101 Hispanic/Latinos, and nearly 100 “others” have had their lives ended by a police state that is out of control. This ain’t no black thang, sista, it’s a POLICE problem. We all know the names of the blacks killed by police: Rice, Brown, Garner, Gray, Scott, etc. How many of those 343 whites can you name, Erin? Perhaps Zach Hammond and then….? Uh? I can’t hear you.
Hey Garth,
You’re right about all these things:
1. I turned in this column before the Defense began making its case. I was able to correctly predict what the strategy would be because at this point, that strategy is oh-so-predictable. That’s kind of the overall point I’m trying to make here.
2. In the eyes of the law, Kerrick is innocent until proven guilty of the crime he is charged with. I never said otherwise. The fact that he shot and killed Jonathan Ferrell, who was unarmed, is undisputed.
3. I’m very familiar with The Counted. I’m very familiar with Zachary Hammond’s case. If his case had happened in Charlotte, I’d be writing about it. Despite the fact black people are seven times more likely to be killed by police, overzealous law enforcement is a huge problem for white people too. It’s a major problem for all American citizens. So why is it mostly just the black community organizing and demanding change? Sometimes it seems like #nolivesmatter to everyone else.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.
“A good start would be for Randall Kerrick to admit he shot Ferrell that night because he was reacting out of fear.”
Just FYI, that’s always a required part of every defense for homicide. The only legal justification for killing someone (even for police officers) is when the individual feels their life, or the lives of others, is being threatened. We don’t allow the killing of people for property crimes. At some point in time, this defendant, like all murder defendants who are claiming justifiable homicide, will have to say that he was in fear for his life or the lives of the other officers.
Also, your statement about Michael Brown being video taped committing a petit theft is also factually incorrect. When you are caught stealing something, even a 50 cent candy bar, and then fight with the owner of the property to get away with the stolen goods, it becomes a robbery, not a theft. Whether you are armed or not is only relevant to the type of robbery. In the case of Brown, it would have been a 2nd degree robbery, also known as a strong arm robbery. Here is the statute, copied and pasted from the MO government Web site:
Robbery in the second degree.
569.030. 1. A person commits the crime of robbery in the second degree when he forcibly steals property.
2. Robbery in the second degree is a class B felony.
Here are the copied and pasted sentences for call B felonies:
Sentence of imprisonment, terms–conditional release.
558.011. 1. The authorized terms of imprisonment, including both prison and conditional release terms, are:
(1) For a class A felony, a term of years not less than ten years and not to exceed thirty years, or life imprisonment;
(2) For a class B felony, a term of years not less than five years and not to exceed fifteen years;
There are several more classes of felonies and misdemeanors, but I left them off since they were not relevant.
In addition, criminal charges are state, not federal, and there is no such charge as “theft” or “petit theft” in Missouri. The legal charge is just called “Stealing” there, and the penalties vary depending on the value and type of item stolen.
Hope this helps you out,
John
So what about the black officer’s testimony that Farrell yelled “shoot me” at least twice? Seems like kind of an important detail.
Look, Ferrell’s dead because he was an idiot, not because of racism. I mean, the guy walks up to a bunch of cops and charges one of them? Would you ever do that? And don’t even bother with the “he had a concussion” crap because I’ve had a concussion and I can tell you it doesn’t make running up on a gun sound like a good idea. You really shouldn’t attack cops, ever. It’s just not how the process was set up.
He knew he was in trouble, soundslike his life was kind of a shambles beforehand, sounds to me like he just snapped.
Suicide by cop, happens all the time. His family already got their payout, wasn’t like this guy was going to produce 2 million anytime soon, how about letting Kerrick get back to work protecting people.