Mistrial ends murder prosecution of onetime cop

Jury can’t reach verdict in Cincinnati shooting

CINCINNATI — Jurors failed to come up with a verdict against a white former police officer charged with murder in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black motorist and were leaning toward a lesser conviction, a prosecutor said Saturday after a mistrial was declared.

The jury spent some 25 hours debating the outcome and indicated several times that they were deadlocked before a judge agreed.

Prosecutors will decide within the next two weeks whether to retry former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing. He was fired after shooting 43-year-old Sam DuBose in the head after pulling him over for a missing front license plate on July 19, 2015.

Tensing, 26, testified he feared he was going to be killed. Prosecutors said repeatedly the evidence contradicted Tensing’s story.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said jurors were leaning toward a conviction of voluntary manslaughter and acquittal on the murder charge. He later told media outlets the vote was deadlocked at 8-4 in favor of the lesser charge.

Judge Megan Shanahan said the jury of 10 whites and two blacks spent two hours deliberating Saturday morning after getting a night’s sleep and still could not reach a decision.

Attorney Al Gerhardstein, who represents the DuBose family, said they want another trial and can’t understand why the jury couldn’t reach a conclusion.

“With the video evidence as clear as it is, they shouldn’t have been so stuck,” he said.

The city’s mayor and police chief said they understood why the family and others were disappointed, but both also expected a peaceful response.

To convict Tensing of murder, jurors would have had to find he purposely killed DuBose. The charge carried a possible sentence of 15 years to life in prison. The voluntary manslaughter charge means killing during sudden fit of rage and carries a possible sentence of three to 11 years.

Legal experts say that juries generally tend to give police officers the benefit of the doubt because of the inherent dangers of their jobs but that they will convict if the police actions were clearly unwarranted.

In tearful testimony Tuesday, Tensing said his arm was stuck in DuBose’s car after he tried to stop him from driving away by grabbing the car keys.

An expert hired by prosecutors said his analysis of the former officer’s body camera video shows the officer was not being dragged by the car. A defense expert countered that the video shows Tensing was justified in fearing for his life because his body was “violently twisted” during the confrontation.

Deters suggested that Tensing had racial motives, saying a study found that eight of every 10 drivers Tensing pulled over for traffic stops were black, the highest rate of any University of Cincinnati officer. Tensing also made more traffic stops and citations than other UC officers. Deters also pointed to a T-shirt with Confederate flag on it that Tensing was wearing under his uniform the day of the shooting.

Tensing said he was often unaware of a driver’s race, did not single people out unfairly and was not racist. He testified that the Confederate flag on his T-shirt had no meaning to him.

The trial was conducted under beefed-up security, and city officials had met with civil rights and faith leaders in the weeks before it began in hopes of reducing unrest.

JOHN MINCHILLO/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Former police officer Ray Tensing arrives in court in Cincinnati on Saturday, the fourth day of jury deliberations in his murder trial. The judge declared a mistrial after the jury said it was deadlocked.