A judge in St. Louis, Mo. has acquitted a former St. Louis police officer of a first degree murder charge in an on-duty police use of deadly force. Former officer Jason Stockley shot and killed Anthony Smith after a high speed chase. This was a bench trial. In what appears to be another example of politicized prosecution as the incident occurred in 2011 and the officer was not charged until 2016.
The judge issued a thirty page written ruling in the case. The ruling from the judge stated, “This court, as the trier of fact, is simply not firmly convinced of defendant’s guilt. Agonizingly, this court has poured over the evidence again and again. This court has viewed the video evidence from the restaurant’s surveillance camera, the cameras in the police vehicle, and the cell phone video by the lay witness, over and over again – innumerable times,”
The prosecution alleged that Stockley planted the firearm that was found inside Smith’s vehicle. The Court responded stating, “The gun was a full size revolver and not a small gun, such as a derringer, that can fit in the palm of one’s hand or into the side pocket on a pair of pants without being obvious,” read the court document. “Stockley was not wearing a jacket; if he had such a gun in his possession it would have been visible on the cell phone video. The gun was too large to fit entirely within any of the pockets on the pants he was wearing, there was no bulge in any pocket indicating a gun within the pocket, and the gun would have been visible if it was tucked into his belt.”
The St. Louis City Prosecutor called for immediate changes in State law to make it easier to successfully prosecute officers involved in the use of deadly force. She apparently has never read Graham v Conner, the United States Supreme Court decision that applies to all fifty states.
The decision of the City of St. Louis to allow a few hundred protestors to effectively shut down an urban downtown is similar to the decisions made by other cities around the country. This affects the commerce of the City and thousands of people are adversely impacted.
Protests followed the verdict effectively shutting down the downtown area of the City of St. Louis with police maintaining a distance from the peaceful protestors. St. Louis Police thwarted the protestors from gaining access to Interstate highways using a line of bicycle officers blocking ramps. As a result of the protests, schools were forced to close early and events were cancelled.