Death of Anthony Smith

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Anthony Lamar Smith was a 24 year old African American who lived in St. Louis , Missouri . He was shot dead with five rounds on December 20, 2011 by Jason Stockley, a St. Louis Police officer after a car chase . The details of his death are controversial. On September 15, 2017, Stockley was acquitted of premeditated murder by a St. Louis court. As a result, protests against the verdict, some of which were violent, broke out in the city. They joined a broader movement of Black Lives Matter activists who protested against racism and the arbitrariness of the US police and the judiciary.

case

Anthony Lamar Smith was charged with the illegal possession of weapons in 2007 and the marijuana trafficking three years later , and was sentenced to a total of five years in prison in 2010. He served 14 months of his sentence and was then released on parole .

Jason Stockley (* 1981) and his colleague Brian Bianchi persecuted Anthony Smith for suspecting that he was in a drug deal in Walnut Park West Neighborhood. The chase ended after Stockley reportedly ordered his partner to ram Smith's car at the intersection of West Florissant Avenue and Goodfellow Boulevard in North St. Louis.

What happened next is unclear and the court later tried to clarify. According to testimony and dashcam recordings, Stockley ordered the driver through the side window to open the car door. According to Stockley's statement, the driver did not obey the request, but looked in the car for a weapon, whereupon he shot him a total of five times. A revolver and heroin were later found in Smith's car . In addition to his service rifle, Jason Stockley had his private AK-47 assault rifle with him at the time, which he was not allowed to carry while on duty.

process

The prosecution charged Jason Stockley with willful murder. As evidence, she cited a video that was recorded by the surveillance camera of her police car during the chase. The conversation between Bianchi and Stockley was recorded on the soundtrack. Here you can hear Stockley saying he will kill the man they are chasing (“going to kill this motherfucker, don't you know it”). The video cannot understand what was said immediately before or after. Referring to this fact, the presiding judge ruled that Stockley's testimony may have been taken out of context and therefore did not constitute conclusive evidence of his murderous intent.

Stockley also testified in court that he saw suspect Smith holding a gun when he was arrested and that he felt threatened. The prosecution accused Jason Stockley of placing the found gun in Anthony Smith's car. After a DNA analysis , no DNA traces of the victim were found on the said weapon, but traces of the police officer.

St. Louis Public Radio noted that Stockley had been the first officer charged with on-duty shooting for a shooting since 2005 and that he left the St. Louis Police Department in 2013.

Protests

On September 15, 2017, protests against the police broke out in St. Louis, some of them violent. Some protesters threw paving stones at the city mayor's house, causing police to use tear gas. The next day, the band U2 and singer Ed Sheeran canceled their planned concerts in the city due to safety concerns.

The civil rights group ACLU announced that it would sue the St. Louis Police for cracking down on protesters. She said the security forces had to keep all video recordings and other evidence of their operations on the weekend of September 16-17. By the evening of September 17, 2017, the police had arrested 123 people. Apparently bystanders and journalists were also arrested.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ St. Louis police investigate claim that officer called Black Lives Matter 'domestic terrorists' . In: bnd . ( bnd.com [accessed September 19, 2017]).
  2. ↑ Karin Geil: Police violence against blacks: From Rodney King to Alton Sterling . In: The time . July 8, 2016, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed September 19, 2017]).
  3. ↑ USA: New Amnesty Report on Fatal Police Violence | Amnesty International. Retrieved September 19, 2017 .
  4. ↑ a b Lauren Trager: Answering viewers' questions about Anthony Smith's criminal history . ( kmov.com [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  5. ↑ a b Durrie Bouscaren, Ryan Delaney: Judge acquits ex-St. Louis officer Stockley of murder in 2011 shooting . ( stlpublicradio.org [accessed September 18, 2017]).
  6. ↑ a b ABC News: Judge in St. Louis case has ruled for and against police . In: ABC News . ( abcnews.go.com [accessed September 18, 2017]).
  7. ↑ St. Louis: Massive Protests Erupt over Acquittal of White Ex-Cop for Murder of Anthony Lamar Smith . In: Democracy Now! ( democracynow.org [accessed September 21, 2017]).
  8. ↑ St. Louis protests acquittal of ex-cop Jason Stockley, who shot and killed Anthony Lamar Smith . In: Vox . ( vox.com [accessed September 18, 2017]).
  9. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: USA: Again riots during protests in St. Louis . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . ( fr.de [accessed on September 18, 2017]).
  10. ^ Former St. Louis Police Officer Is Acquitted Of Murder In Anthony Lamar Smith Case . In: NPR.org . ( npr.org [accessed September 18, 2017]).
  11. ↑ St. Louis - 80 arrests after violent protests . In: Deutschlandfunk . ( deutschlandfunk.de [accessed September 18, 2017]).
  12. ↑ US civil rights activists want to sue the police in St. Louis . In: Der Tagesspiegel Online . September 20, 2017, ISSN  1865-2263 ( tagesspiegel.de [accessed September 21, 2017]).