A Cleveland police officer was acquitted today for his role in the 2012 fatal shooting of two unarmed people in a car after officers mistook the sound of the car backfiring as gunshots.
After a four-week trial, a judge found officer Michael Brelo, 31, not guilty of two counts of felony voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of Timothy Russell, 43, and Malissa Williams, 30. Russell and Williams were killed Nov. 29, 2012, after they led 62 police vehicles on a chase across Cleveland.
Prosecutions of officers for the use of deadly force are rare given there have been thousands of fatal police shootings in the past decade. When criminal charges have been pursued, officers have most often been acquitted or cleared, according to a recent analysis by The Washington Post in conjunction with criminologist Philip M. Stinson and researchers at Bowling Green University.
Alfoster Garrett Jr. you are talking about the same officer that just a month before had a subside by cop situation and chose not to pull the trigger? Oh right his record as an exemplary officer and as a decorated war vet don’t mean anything. The fact that the driver tried to kill people and was reported as armed and having fired shots means nothing.
This man should of been found guilty! When he jumped on the car & started shooting, that’s where I believe he should be charged as guilty. My Prayers are for the family’s. Wrong is wrong!! I have witnessed racial profiling, anyone that says it don’t happen, you are part of the problem!
Daaaammnn ! look at that windshield. Oh God !
Nemo 122 shots, the car stops and the officer (Breslo, the only officer charged) jumps on the hood and shoots 15 more times in the front windshield at the suspects. Anyone who asserts that isn’t excessive is a complete f*cking idiot. The chase was handled piss poor and against protocol. This was an execution because one of theirs was hurt point blank. I feel for the officers hurt in the line of duty but they CANNOT play judge, jury an executioner. #slipperyslope
God will get him for that u will c
horrible
Eugene Carper Jr.
I didn’t hear about this incident but if everything happened as Nemo Sicking said it did then there shouldn’t be a questions Or rioting it was for the safety of the people again wasn’t aware of this one.