Does This Grisly Dashcam Video Prove a Cop Murdered a Suspect?
A DeLand, Florida, police officer who was fired after running over and killing a fleeing suspect named Marlon Brown will not be charged with vehicular manslaughter. Brown's family hopes this video might somehow change that ruling.
The officer, James Harris, has already been let go for violating his department's chase policy. But this month a grand jury decided to not file criminal charges against Harris, who on May 8 sped toward and struck the 38-year-old Brown after Brown got out of his car and ran during a traffic stop. Brown tripped and fell while attempting to escape, at which point Harris ran over him. After the collision, a voice off camera says, "I think he's underneath the fucking car." Though Brown had a criminal record, the initial stop on the night of his death was related to an alleged seatbelt infraction.
Last week some of Brown's family members came out to express their disagreement with the grand jury's decision. They argue, for instance, that the grand jury never got a chance to see dashcam footage of the incident (below and very graphic), which they decided to release in order to give the public a better image of what happened on the night of the incident. "We feel betrayed by our criminal justice system," said Brown's wife, Krystle, who reached a $550,000 settlement with DeLand last month. "The video is important and speaks the truth."
The family is also skeptical about the testimony of Shiping Bao, the associate medical examiner who was fired from his post after bungling numerous opinions in the Trayvon Martin shooting. Bao testified that Harris' car didn't strike Brown and that Brown died by getting trapped under the car and suffocating, according to ThinkProgress.
"This was an execution in a vegetable garden," Benjamin Crump, who is representing the Brown family, said in a press conference last week. "The officer came at Marlon with such velocity that ... he could not have stopped." Crump was also the attorney for Trayvon Martin's family.