Lisa Mearkle charged with criminal homicide

[Will E Worm]

Pa. police officer charged with criminal homicide after fatal shooting of unarmed motorist


The attempted traffic stop over an expired inspection sticker ended with a Pennsylvania police officer firing two shots into 59-year-old David Kassick’s back as he was lying face down on the ground, according to officials.

Authorities have now charged Hummelstown police officer Lisa Mearkle, 36, with criminal homicide for the fatal February incident. Dauphin District Attorney Ed Marsico announced Tuesday that deadly force wasn’t justified.

Mearkle discharged her Taser twice before shooting Kassick in the center of his back, investigators said. Mearkle’s attorney Brian Perry argued the officer acted in self-defense. “She felt like she had to do what she did,” Perry told the Associated Press. “This person was being commanded, begged, ‘show me your hands,’ and he kept going to his waist.”

A one-and-a-half minute video recorded on Mearkle’s Taser gun captured the incident and it led to the homicide charge.

“At the time Officer Mearkle fires both rounds from her pistol, the video clearly depicts Kassick lying on the snow covered lawn with his face toward the ground,” according to the criminal complaint. “Furthermore, at the time the rounds are fired nothing can be seen in either of Kassick’s hands, nor does he point or direct anything toward Officer Mearkle.”

[Issues over police shooting in Ferguson lead push for officers and body cameras]

The charges comes at a time of increased national scrutiny over police shootings of unarmed civilians, some of which have also been captured on video.

“We don’t live in a vacuum, we know what’s going on in this country,” Marsico said at the news conference, the Patriot-News reported. “Today speaks volumes … where the evidence shows that charges should be filed, we will not hesitate.”

[How many police shootings a year? No one knows]

Kassick’s family lawyers called the charge “a substantial step toward closure.”

“Mr. Kassick is now dead as a result of a traffic stop, a routine traffic stop,” family attorney Christopher Slusser told the Associated Press. “He should not be dead.”

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arty:


Now will police start thinking and acting like civil servants?

 

[Rey C.]

I say this as a person with loads of cops in his family and a person who has cop friends: there are the laws that apply to civilians... and there is cop law. They are not one and the same.

Whether you like that or not, that is the truth. As one of my cop acquaintances said after he was sworn in a long time ago, "I've got a license to kill."

 

[Will E Worm]

I say this as a person with loads of cops in his family and a person who has cop friends: there are the laws that apply to civilians... and there is cop law. They are not one and the same.

Whether you like that or not, that is the truth. As one of my cop acquaintances said after he was sworn in a long time ago, "I've got a license to kill."

Either laws apply equally, or we live in anarchy.

As we see here, she is guilty and going away for awhile.

Have fun in prison with the inmates. :stir:

 

[Johan]

I say this as a person with loads of cops in his family and a person who has cop friends: there are the laws that apply to civilians... and there is cop law. They are not one and the same.

Whether you like that or not, that is the truth. As one of my cop acquaintances said after he was sworn in a long time ago, "I've got a license to kill."

The guy clearly should be relieved of his duty

Being a cop shouldn't give you more rights than other people. Actually it should give you more duties.

Either laws apply equally, or we live in anarchy.

Actually, when the government, the military and the law enforcment forces have more rights than the rest of the people it is not anarchy, it is called "a police state".

 

[Mr. Daystar]

Actually, when the government, the military and the law enforcment forces have more rights than the rest of the people it is not anarchy, it is called "a police state".

So name me one country that actually DOES allow it's people more rights. And I don't just mean on paper....