Police who shot naked teen dead ‘justified’ claim lawyers

7 August, 2019; Oklahoma City – Attorneys representing  the two police officers who shot and killed a naked black teenager in May claimed the killing was justified in court papers today.

Two officers claim they tased Isaiah Lewis, 17,  multiple times with no effect (NB – tasers can be lethal, and no one should be tased multiple times).   They already knew he had had some form of breakdown, whether permanent or temporary was irrelevant (he had THC and an antihistamine in his system, nothing else).  He had run through the streets naked, and allegedly broken and entered.  He.  Was. Unarmed.

It is not clear whether the officers could have, as one might have immediately and reasonably done, just cornered/contained the 17 year old and called for an ambulance and medical crew to deal with the obviously mentally-unstable man.  They killed him instead.  As One News reported at the time of the killing, the same force had managed to arrest without killing an armed white teen who had murdered his parents.

According to Buzzfeed’s report back in May , there are discrepancies between police and witness claims, and that neither of the police involved in the killing were wearing bodycams, apparently not fully distributed to the force.  It is claimed Isaiah Lewis had previously assaulted other police officers, one had a head injury of some kind.

Officers Box, 56, and Scherman, 24, were placed on administrative assignment.

ACTION

Please contact Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater through one of the channels below and give him the following message, personalized to your liking:


I am sickened to learn that defense attorneys claim that  17 year-old Isaiah Lewis’ killing is considered ‘justified’,  and I expect your office to be robustly investigating the many questions around the killing.

It seems pretty clear that police statements do not add up ( for instance how does an unarmed naked teen pose a lethal threat to two trained, armed police officers  who should have been trying to get medics and an ambulance to deal with the situation?). 

The following questions need to be addressed at any trial, and the stunt pulled by the attorneys representing the killers can only serve to have further distressed the deceased’s family and friends:

Questions arising:
*  Why wasn’t an ambulance immediately called when it was clear the teenager was suffering some kind of mental health episode?  Whatever the cause of it, it was a medical situation as well as any potentially criminal one.

 

*  What injuries precisely were suffered by which officers that required them to go to hospital?  Were they serious enough to require medical treatment, or as is often the case, did they report to hospital in order to be able to say hospital treatment was needed should any legal action later arise – such as for an unlawful killing?  The exact injuries need to be disclosed.
*  Did other officers have body cams?  Why didn’t the two responding officers wear body cams?  Was absolutely nothing caught on cameras by anyone?  Did any other cameras record any of the episode?
*  Why is there a discrepancy between the deceased’s girlfriend – who says she never claimed she was assaulted and the police who claim they were told she was?
*  How precisely were tasers used:  how many times fired, to what part of the body, by which officer(s), and were the tasers deployed correctly by trained officers?  A taser, used correctly should be able to stop anyone – in fact they are occasionally fatal (beanbag guns, such as used in Europe, will unfailingly knock a weapon-holding person over, likely disarming them without the brain or cardiac damage tasers do).
*  How close were the police when they fired; how much time in between each round being fired and how did this not stop the deceased; was he still in a position to pose a threat to the two officers, unarmed as he was after multiple taser shots and being shot once – and they after being shot multiple times?
* And sadly, in today’s climate, any trial must also be told of any racial discrimination, race hate groups, and any racial incidents either officer may have been involved with.

I will be watching this situation carefully, and I expect to have all of these questions fully answered – and to see that justice is done.

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