Ex-officer convicted of murder of unarmed teen
DALLAS — A former police officer was convicted Tuesday of murder for the April 2017 shooting death of an African-American teenager and could face up to life in prison.
Roy Oliver had testified he was defending his partner when he shot into a car of youth leaving a house party in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs. Jordan Edwards, 15,was sitting in the front passenger seat, and was killed instantly.
Oliver testified that he “had no other option than to use lethal force,” and considered Edwards a threat after seeing his silhouette moving in the car. Asked if he would have made the same decision today, Oliver said, “If I had had all of the information? No.”
The incident became a flash point in north Texas and nationally, reigniting concerns of racism and police brutality. Oliver is the second ex-officer in Dallas County to be found guilty this year of a civilian’s death.
More than a dozen uniformed police officers lined the walls of the packed courtroom as the verdict was read. The jury, which deliberated for 13 hours, found Oliver not guilty on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon by a public servant.
Oliver’s wife sobbed in a front row while embracing his mother. On the other side of the courtroom, friends and family of Jordan Edwards hugged each other as they also cried. Several women quietly said, “God is good.”
The attorney handling a federal civil lawsuit against Oliver, which had been on hold while the criminal case was litigated, has said the Edwards family wants him “to be severely punished.”
Oliver and his partner had been dispatched in response to neighbors’ complaints about a party with drunken high school teens. But there was no alcohol at the party, and the mood was cordial, with the officers joking with the partygoers.
Things changed when shots rang out from a nearby parking lot — which were later determined to have been fired into the air by gang members.
Within days of the shooting, Oliver was fired from Balch Springs, ending his seven-year tenure as a licensed peace officer. He’d been disciplined once before, for losing his temper with an assistant district attorney during a trial, an incident that was detailed for jurors.