In the United States today, there are many debates about the crimes against African Americans that are being committed by police officers. For years there has been a worrying amount of news stories about police officers shooting unarmed African American males with little to no provocation from them. These shootings have led to massive outcries from the citizens of the United States as well as created movements such as “black lives matter.” These groups want to see a change on how police officers are trained and for racial profiling to stop. One of the cases that added the fuel to the fire is Randall Kerrick versus Jonathan Ferrell.
The case of Randall Kerrick versus Jonathan Ferrell happened on September 14, 2013, when an officer of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg…
Neither the dash cam nor the police reports showed that Ferrell was calling for help when he saw the police officers and since he was running towards them the officers had the right to defend themselves. Officer Kerrick should not of pulled out his firearm and the fact that he thought that Ferrell was trying to get his gun away from him still did not warrant the officer to shoot Ferrell. Especially since the other two officers testified that they never saw reason to pull out their own guns. In the best case scenario, Kerrick should of brought out his own stun gun and used that to shoot Ferrell instead. Also I feel like the women who called 911 was wrong as well. She called the police in fear of a strange man, who she thought was trying to break down her door, but she never bothered to listen to Ferrell as he was probably calling out for help repeatedly. Whether or not the police departments actions were correct or not is up to speculation. In my mind the actions of the police department handling the case and the officer who used their stun gun was correct, but the actions of Randall Kerrick was completely wrong.
Racial tensions in the United States has been has major problem for the last few years. The multiple cases of police officers shooting African Americans have only increased these tensions. One of these cases that fueled the flames is the incident that happen back in 2013, when Officer Kerrick shot and killed Jonathan Ferrell. The actions of Officer Kerrick were wrong since he acted more in fear than any actual proof that Ferrell was going to harm…