The trooper is charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, officials said.
The only thing remarkable here is that justice is being carried out.
Here there is no cane or other action or thing that one can point to to say that the officer is in reasonable fear of serious bodily injury or death.
I cannot fault a defense attorney for doing his job, but this shooting was 100% wrong. That Trooper is clearly too afraid of the Boogie Man and picked the wrong profession. The driver was reaching into the vehicle like I would expect if I had just asked him for his driver's license. What was the indicator to the trooper that the driver might be armed? The color of his skin?
Trooper Sean Groubert's dash cam shows shooting of Levar Jones - wistv.com - Columbia, South Carolina |
Barney Giese, Groubert's defense attorney, said there's more than one way to interpret the video and told the judge Wednesday his client is not guilty and was justified in shooting Jones who was reaching for his license. Giese, who served as the 5th Judicial Circuit Solicitor for the past 16 years, said Jones reached for his license "aggressively" and Trooper Groubert thought he was reaching for a gun.