During the sentencing phase, which is now underway, Rankin addressed Chapman’s family saying “I wish I could have done more than I did to keep him alive”. He was initially charged with first-degree murder and using a firearm to commit a felony, but those were reduced to the voluntary manslaughter charge. And after hearing the sentence, she said it was “not enough”. No, Rankin wasn’t led away in handcuffs.
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A circuit court jury found former Portsmouth police officer Stephen Rankin guilty for the killing of William Chapman in April of previous year. A jury convicted Rankin of voluntary manslaughter on Thursday in the shooting death of William Chapman, an unarmed black man who had been accused of shoplifting. When he had arrived on scene, Rankin said Chapman was walking away from the Wal-Mart and toward Frederick Boulevard.
He said that he had repeatedly told Chapman to remove his left hand from his pocket and to stop resisting. Later that day, the jury was shown the taser video taken the day Chapman was shot and killed.
Rankin is on trial for shooting and killing 18-year-old William Chapman in the parking lot of the Portsmouth Walmart in April of 2015.
During the punishment phase of the trial, prosecutors called Lewis to testify about Chapman’s life and character. He said Chapman planned to get his GED and enlist in the military himself. A Walmart security guard testified and described the shooting and verbal confrontation between Rankin and Chapman. The officers praised Rankin as professional and a “great individual”.
Rankin’s attorneys said they plan to appeal.
Rankin also took the stand Tuesday morning. He described the shooting as a “terrible tragedy” and said he wished it had never happened.
Attorneys for a Virginia police officer who is charged with murder are trying to have his trial thrown out, after a friend of the shooting victim’s family was recorded on CCTV speaking to a juror. Across the country, only 74 officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter stemming from an on-duty shooting since 2005, according to data from Philip Stinson, an associate professor of criminology at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University.
Ex-Portsmouth police officer Stephen Rankin answers questions from the prosecution during the penalty phase of the his trial on Thursday, August 5, 2016 in Portsmouth, VA. Rankin was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Chapman’s son, William Chapman II, a year ago in a Walmart parking lot in Portsmouth.
Rankin responded by shooting him twice. The jury recommended he serve two-and-half-years in jail. His defense attorneys have been laying groundwork for months. But most witnesses said Chapman had his hands up, and prosecutor Stephanie Morales said the officer could have used force that was not deadly.
Another reason that officers walk free is that judges and juries tend to side with the police.
At 10:05a.m. Thursday, Rankin and all lawyers in the case were being called back into the courtroom.
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Rankin, who was sacked from the Portsmouth police force after being indicted, had already killed another unarmed suspect, four years earlier, and many in the mostly black city of 100,000 saw his trial as a chance for accountability as police shootings continue around the country.
