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Re: Family wants answers after pallbearer killed by officers

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In article <t2rved$3r0s8$35@news.freedyn.de>
<governor.swill@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The DOJ needs a housecleaning and some skull crushings.
>

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Jason Arnie Owens helped carry his 
father’s casket to the hearse, then turned to embrace a 
relative. He never made it to the cemetery.

As mourners gathered outside a northern West Virginia funeral 
home on Aug. 24, two plainclothes officers with a fugitive 
warrant swooped in from separate vehicles, called Owens' name 
and shot him dead, spattering his 18-year-old son's shirt with 
blood as horrified loved ones looked.

"There was no warning whatsoever,” family friend Cassandra 
Whitecotton said.

In the blink of an eye, stunned friends and family already 
mourning one member lost another. Now, they want answers — not 
just why Owens was shot but why the encounter happened the way 
it did.

Law enforcement officials aren't explaining much right now, 
citing an ongoing investigation. Owens, 37, was wanted on a 
fugitive warrant, but the U.S. Marshals Service hasn't said what 
it was for. The agency also said in a statement that he had a 
gun when members of a fugitive task force approached. Multiple 
witnesses contend that's not true.

Whitecotton and others who stood just feet away said Owens was 
unarmed, had been hugging his aunt, Evelyn O’Dell, and was fired 
on immediately after his name was called. Witnesses also dispute 
the U.S. Marshals' assertion that first aid was performed right 
away, before emergency medical services arrived.

"They yelled Jason’s name. They just said ‘Jason’ and then 
started firing,” Whitecotton said. “There was no identifications 
they were U.S. Marshals — anything. They did not render this man 
any aid at all. Never once they touched him to render any aid 
whatsoever.”

As relatives prepared for services Friday for Owens, a state 
police investigation of the shooting was underway. But patience 
in the community is wearing thin.

Relatives and supporters protested outside the Harrison County 
Courthouse last week, accusing law enforcement authorities of 
overreach in the death of Owens, who was white. A Facebook page 
called Justice for Jason Owens has swelled to about 800 members 
— more than half of the population of Nutter Fort, where Owens 
was killed.

Underlying the unanswered questions is whether some boundary of 
decency had been crossed in arresting a man in the midst of 
burying his father.

“If they’ve been searching for someone and they finally figure 
out where they are, they’re going to get them,” said Tracy L. 
Hahn, a Columbus, Ohio-based security consultant who retired 
after 32 years in law enforcement, including as deputy police 
chief at Ohio State University.

Hahn said she knows agencies that have gone to funerals but have 
waited until afterward to approach the person.

“There must be some extenuating circumstance that they felt the 
urgency to arrest him then instead of waiting, if there was some 
risk factor, an escape risk or something like that,” Hahn said.

Family members aren’t so sure. They say it only adds to their 
sense of disrespect that the agencies involved feel no 
obligation to address their questions.

“We want to know why you would do this in front of his family,” 
said Owens’ cousin, Mandy Swiger. “And what gives you the right 
to do that to an unarmed man?”

Acting U.S. Marshal Terry Moore said he couldn’t answer 
questions during the investigation and messages left with state 
police weren’t returned.

It’s not clear whether video exists from police bodycams, a 
police vehicle dashboard or the funeral home itself. Unlike 
major cities where detailed incident reports and video footage 
are released after fatal police shootings — sometimes within 
hours — that rarely happens in West Virginia.

West Virginia law exempts police from having to release video 
footage during an investigation. And the U.S. Marshals Service 
office said it did not write a detailed incident report about 
the shooting, referring to the news release that withheld Owens’ 
name and other details.

Owens had been in trouble with the law before. He was sentenced 
in 2018 to three to 13 years in prison for fleeing a Harrison 
County sheriff’s deputy and trying to strangle him during a 
scuffle. He was released on parole in April 2021.

But Swiger said he committed a parole violation “for not 
checking in just once. And that’s why he promised his mom after 
the funeral he would turn himself in.”

Whitecotton said she was smoking a cigarette after the service 
when an SUV came flying down the side street where the hearse 
would pull out.

"It about hit me, so I jumped back up on the curb and kind of 
looked at him like, ‘What’s your problem?’” she said. A man in 
shorts and a T-shirt jumped out, leaving his door open.

Swiger said a white truck with another plainclothes officer 
inside almost hit her mother’s vehicle as the truck sped into 
the parking lot. Swiger said Owens was shot from different 
directions and estimated as many as 40 people were in the area. 
She, too, said she didn't see a gun in Owens' hands.

Some mourners instinctively rushed toward Owens after he fell to 
the ground, Swiger said, but were told by one of the officers, 
“You step back or I’ll shoot you.”

Whitecotton said she has lived in much larger cities such as 
Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth.

“Never in my life have I dealt with anything like this,” she 
said. "I would expect it there, honestly. But not here.”

https://news.yahoo.com/family-wants-answers-pallbearer-killed-
032730956.html

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Re: Family wants answers after pallbearer killed by officers "DOJ Corruption" <doj_corruption@nytimes.com> - 2022-09-10 10:14 +0200

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