Rankin was eventually fired from the Portsmouth Police Department as he awaited trial for Chapman’s death.
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A white Virginia police officer was found guilty of manslaughter Thursday in the shooting death of an unarmed Black teen suspected of shoplifting. “There’s no way a jury would convict a police officer on a murder charge with those facts”.
Rankin, 36, faced one to 10 years on the manslaughter conviction. The jury recommended a sentence of two-and-a-half years in jail for Rankin, which was a quarter of what prosecutors suggested. Criminal charges are rare in police-involved shootings, and convictions are even more uncommon.
Juries are very reluctant to convict on-duty officers of murder “because they all recognize that policing is hard and violent”, Stinson said.
In a similar case in Baltimore on Thursday, a jury convicted a police officer of assault for shooting an unarmed burglary suspect.
Rankin had been charged with first-degree murder and using a firearm to commit a felony.
Protestors in Portsmouth, Virginia. “It’s not enough”, Chapman’s mother said. The Stand Your Ground statute is typically used as a civilian defense, not by police officers. Judge Johnny Morrison will formally sentence Rankin at a later hearing.
Trial prosecutors were barred by the judge from telling the jury about Denyakin.
Rankin’s attorneys said they plan to appeal.
The former Portsmouth police officer, Stephen Rankin, shot Chapman, 18, in the face and chest outside a Walmart store a year ago, after a security guard reported a theft from the store.
No video recorded the killing and testimony conflicted on the details.
The jurors were not informed, however, that the former officer had previously shot and killed an unarmed Kazakh hotel cook, Kirill Ivanovich Denyakin, four years prior to the night that Chapman was slain.
Babineau says the suit will include “what the police chief knew about officer Rankin, his conduct and his performance as a police officer dating all the way back to when he was first hired and attended the police academy”.
“I think this is a awful tragedy I wish it had never happened”. I wish it had never happened.
“I can’t begin to fathom how much pain that family is going through”.
Instead, he said Chapman screamed “shoot me” several times before charging at him from about 6ft away. He said he used his stun gun on the teen, but Chapman knocked it away. Rankin said he fired his weapon after the teen came towards him in an aggressive manner. “I thought he was coming to kill me”, Rankin said.
Broccoletti argued that Rankin had to shoot, because “everything he tried to do didn’t work”. According to his own testimony, after a confrontation that the officer felt was moving toward physical violence, Rankin pulled out his taser and shocked Chapman.
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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. Authorities said Rankin fired the fatal shot only after Chapman “aggressively” took a step toward the officer. A third of these were convicted, a third were not and the other cases are pending.
