After the recent incident involving Michael Brown, a black man, who was killed by a white officer in Missouri, another cop-on-civilian homicide has come up again into the news. The family of a white teen who was killed by a black officer in Alabama has been the center of controversy for some time, a Nov. 27 report shows.
The nearly-two-year-old case involved an unarmed 18-year-old white teen who was under the influence of drugs at the time of the shooting. He was shot and killed by the officer in Mobile, Alabama, on Oct. 6, 2012. The public pressed for an indictment in that case, but the Mobile County grand jury refused to bring any charges against the officer and agreed that he had acted only in self-defense. The same kind of decision, one not to indict an officer, is what caused a number of riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in late November 2014.
In the case in Alabama, the shooting victim had been naked and unarmed. He also never touched the officer, calling into question why he was shot. The victim’s mother and father filed a lawsuit for the case in July 2014. They argued that because the teen had never touched the officer and was shot at a distance, the officer could have used a baton or pepper spray to control the situation.
These cases are never simple. They can be hard to prove and hard to win. But if you are dealing with a situation like this, don’t let the difficulty of the case hold you back. You deserve to get the justice you need for your loved one.
Source: The Washington Times, “White teen killed by black cop in Alabama mirrors Ferguson” Valerie Richardson, Nov. 27, 2014
