A prosecutor in Ohio announced that three officers who responded to a burglary report and fatally shot a man who, according to his family, was cleaning up his deceased grandmother’s apartment will not face charges.
Body camera footage from Wyoming Police Department officers was made public by Hamilton County prosecutor Jessica A. Powers.
She claimed that when the man, Joe Frasure Jr., 28, refused to comply with their orders to exit a minivan and instead sped at them in a restricted space, endangering their lives, the police became fearful for their safety.
At a press conference, Ms. Powers declared that “lethal force was appropriately employed here.”
The cops’ behaviour and if they had feared for their lives were the main subjects of her study, she claimed.
She continued that it was impossible to determine if Mr. Frasure acted maliciously or was attempting to flee.
We can never be sure of the response, she said.
According to the police chief, Brooke Brady, the incident occurred at at 12:37 a.m. on Monday when officers were called to investigate a “burglary in progress” after a neighbour reported seeing two to three persons inside a home that “should have been vacant.”
The cops can be seen approaching the structure in the video that Ms. Powers made public and then making their way to the back, where they come upon Mr. Frasure and his father, Joe Frasure Sr., in a constrained space.
She claimed that the senior Mr. Frasure had been standing in the driveway when he ran away.
The minivan’s driver was the younger Mr. Frasure. The officers can be seen in the video shouting “Stop!” while standing in the shadows with their firearms drawn. Get out of the automobile right away, and raise your hands in the air.
Before the film began to play, Ms. Powers provided her own summary of the gloomy and occasionally choppy material: She claimed that when the cops ordered him to get out of the car, Mr. Frasure refused and instead pushed the car in reverse, damaging a tree. He then sped toward the officers and came dangerously close to striking one of them before steering toward the other two.
According to Ms. Powers, those two officers opened fire three to four times “as the truck sped within feet of them.” Frasure was hit by at least one bullet, she claimed.
An officer is seen in the film with his headlights directly in his face.
After the senior Mr. Frasure’s mother passed away on January 6, his half brother Joe Frasure Jr. and sister-in-law Erika Frasure said in an earlier interview that Mr. Frasure and his father had been removing items from the building and that they had until February 7 to have the apartment cleared out. Erika Frasure said that her brother-in-law had raised two children.
Family members demanded an investigation and the release of body camera tapes at a protest this week in Wyoming, a city of more than 8,000 people located about 12 miles north of Cincinnati.
The authorities had previously been looking for the younger Mr. Frasure.
According to Ms. Powers, he had an active warrant for probation violation while under probation in Indiana for criminal battery on a victim under the age of 14. She added that he had also violated his parole after being found guilty of manufacturing methamphetamine in Kentucky.
The senior Mr. Frasure’s attorney, Glenda A. Smith, asserted that her client was not in custody and was not facing any charges.
She claimed in a Friday interview that “they shot his son in the back of the head.” “I saw a video, but I didn’t see him approach any officers. After being ordered to get to the ground by the other officer who had just started firing, my client fled and hailed down a Wyoming police officer.
The officers, who have not been publicly identified, were placed on paid administrative leave, Chief Brady announced at the press conference. She claimed that when Mr. Frasure drove the minivan at them while going up an incline at a “erratic velocity,” he put them in a “very perilous scenario.”
The chief replied, “I think they did properly in those circumstances.
After the shooting, the police took Mr. Frasure out of the car and attempted to administer life-saving first assistance, according to Chief Brady.
According to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, which has joined the inquiry, Mr. Frasure had been hospitalised at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and was in a critical condition.
Ms. Powers said that Mr. Frasure was pronounced dead on Tuesday. The results of the autopsy are still pending.
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