And the judge did not allow testimony about messages Rankin sent to a police dispatcher before the shooting in which he said he hated the job and the whole world.
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Stinson’s data don’t include cases in which civilians died in police custody or were killed by other means, or those in which officers faced only lesser charges.
The defence said Rankin had to shoot after a stun gun failed to stop the teenager.
ABC reports that the jurors-eight black and four white-began their deliberations Tuesday.
But the black community in Portsmouth, Virginia, hoped the murder trial of Rankin, 36, would be a turning point toward more accountability.
In 2011, Kazakhstan’s Kirill Denyakin was shot and killed by Rankin.
The Virginia trial coincides with a nationwide controversy simmering over the use of deadly force by police against African-Americans.
Persuading jurors to convict officers is always hard because people tend to give police the benefit of the doubt, said Philip Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “Juries are very reluctant to convict an officer because they all recognize that policing is hard and violent”.
News 3 learned Jon Babineau, the attorney for the Chapman family claims Stephen Rankin should have never been on the streets patrolling. The officer said the teen, who he estimated to be approximately six feet away, moved toward him combatively, taunting the policeman to shoot him.
That’s when he drew his pistol, Rankin said, and repeatedly commanded Chapman to “get on the ground”. Rankin said he experienced “tunnel vision” and, fearing for his life, fired his weapon twice. “The Rankin verdict makes sense to me ― as soon as I heard testimony during the trial from another officer that when he arrived on the scene right after the shooting, Rankin was performing CPR on the man he had just shot”, Stinson said.
Gregory Provo, the Walmart security guard, testified that Chapman never charged the officer, but did say Chapman raised his hands boxing-style and said, “Are you going to f**king shoot me?” before Rankin fired at him.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Morales said, “Whether they appeal or not that’s the decision for them and if they do it feel we will respond accordingly and we will handle everything through the court system”.
The officer “brought a gun into what is at worst a fist fight”, Morales told the jury, which deliberated for almost two days before returning its verdict.
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The jury recommended a sentence of two-and-a-half years, but he will not be officially sentenced until a later date. In his first on-duty killing, he was cleared of wrongdoing after firing 11 times at a white burglary suspect. In that incident, Rankin claimed the man charged at him while reaching into his waistband with his hands. The officer was initially charged with first-degree murder, as prosecutors argued he intentionally killed Chapman for not complying with orders after stopping the teen in a Walmart parking lot on suspicion of shoplifting.
