Families seek new investigations into police killings
RICHMOND, VA. >> One man died a decade ago after a police officer in New York state told him to move his illegally parked car. Another, in the midst of a mental health crisis on a Virginia highway, was fatally shot by an officer in 2018.
A third man died in Oklahoma the next year after a foot chase and struggle with police. His last words echoed the ones used by Black men in similar circumstances and the chants at civil rights protests: “I can’t breathe.”
The officers involved in the deaths of Danroy “DJ” Henry Jr., 20, Marcus-David Peters, 24, and Derrick Elliot Scott, 41, all were cleared of wrongdoing. But the protests against racial injustice since George Floyd was killed during a police encounter in Minnesota have the three men’s families urging authorities to reopen the investigations.
Activists elsewhere, dismayed by a Kentucky grand
jury’s decision not to charge any officers in the shooting death of 26-year- old Breonna Taylor, are pressing prosecutors to take a second look at other cases.
Some people with law en
forcement experience think the nationwide push for police reform could lead prosecutors to acquiesce, if the pressure is great enough.
National Police Association spokesperson Betsy
Brantner Smith said she worries that in the current climate, officers previously absolved of misconduct might end up facing criminal charges.
“This issue has been horrifically politicized, so I think it will greatly depend on the pressure politically in whatever particular jurisdiction we’re talking about,” Smith, a retired police sergeant, said.
Others see such campaigns as uphill battles.
Stanford University law professor David Alan Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor, said the killings of Floyd in May and Taylor in March may convince prosecutors to examine new cases more closely. But most “try to resolve individual cases on their merits and not in response to political pressure,” and therefore will be reluctant to revisit old ground without significant new evidence, Sklansky said.
Police protocols allow the use of deadly force when officers fear for their lives or the lives of others are threatened. Because criminal laws and juries often give great deference to police and the split-second decisions they have to make, families sometimes turn to civil courts to seek justice.