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. He now faces up to 10 years in prison, although the jury recommended just 2 1/2 years.
Advertisement
It’s exceedingly hard to convict a police officer in the rare instances in which one is prosecuted.
The conviction marks a departure from a series of acquittals of police officers in fatal shootings that have sparked outrage in the United States over the last few years.
“The sentence was not enough”, said Earl Lewis Jr., a cousin of the 18-year-old who died, William Chapman II. Judge Johnny Morrison will formally sentence Rankin at a later hearing. The judge doesn’t have to follow the jury’s recommendation, but can’t increase the penalty. Among their concerns was their inability to use what they said was Chapman’s violent juvenile history during the trial. No video recorded the killing, and testimony conflicted on the details.
Prosecutors had argued that Rankin could have used non-deadly force, underlining that every witness, with the exception of Rankin himself, had testified that the teen had his hands up.
The officer “brought a gun into what is at worst a fist fight”, prosecutor Stephanie Morales told the jury.
Rankin did not face trial over the incident.
As Huffington Post notes, “the overwhelming majority of police shooting cases are ultimately determined to be justified homicides, in which deadly force was used lawfully, often in what police say was an effort to protect an officer’s safety or to prevent harm to the public”.
“I think this is a awful tragedy I wish had never happened”. “I can’t begin to fathom how much pain that family is going through. I wish I could have done more to keep him alive”, he added.
Rankin claimed that he had walked up to Chapman to discuss the shoplifting accusation and was preparing to handcuff him when the teen refused to obey orders and started to struggle.
Defence attorneys maintained that Rankin attempted to use his Taser on Chapman, but it had been knocked from his hand. Both men then faced each other from a short distance away.
In his court testimony, Rankin said that he went went up to Chapman and told him, “I suppose you know why I am here”. Rankin said Denyakin charged him while reaching into his waistband, when the former officer shot him 11 times. Rankin said he experienced “tunnel vision” at that point, and fearing for his life, fired twice to stop him. “I thought he was coming to kill me”, Rankin said.
Defence lawyer James Broccoletti said shooting was his only choice after “everything he tried to do didn’t work”.
Advertisement
He said Chapman raised both hands, boxing-style, and said “Are you going to shoot me?” before Rankin fired from about five yards away. 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. Of those, a third were convicted, a third were not and the other cases are pending.
