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.
Look I’m not a big fan of police. We definitely have a corporate police state that is more quickly becoming a federalized police state, but is anyone paying attention to the facts in this case. The guy ran from police, then used his car as a deadly weapon in an attempt to kill an officer on foot, then crashed through a police barricade almost killing more officers, then tried to crash through another barricade attempting to kill more officers. Here is a photo of the car after it crashed into the second barricade.
Bottom line is when you run from the cops they are going to chase you. If in the process of running you become a threat that is attempting to kill them the cops will put you down any way they can.
There are plenty of legitimate problems with law enforcement. Plenty of incidents where police wrongfully beat, abused, detained and/or killed a person. This is not one of them.
Personally I’m flabbergasted. Of all the innocent people that are harassed, harmed and killed by police that the public could be standing behind and they choose to stand under the flag criminals. This is why so many people that would back the idea of revolution are staying away from it.
I pray for all my friends and family that live in the Cleveland area.
THAT IS SO WRONG.IF ITS ANYBODY ELSE THEY’LL BE UNDER THE JAIL.
ok not guilty ok watch out
Not shocking but let it had been anyone else
Omg so sad
WOW
And for us who live in Ohio know Ohio is extremely racist state.
Yup. This is what they do. Ridiculous Cleveland. Again. #Tamir Rice this is disgusting
As long they doing it to black people they who with it