On January 11, 2019, a 19-year-old African American teenager named Jacob Harris was gunned down by regulation enforcement officers with the Phoenix Police Division (PhxPD). Two officers, particularly, repeatedly fired their pistol and an AR-15 assault rifle on the teenager after he exited a car and tried to flee. Their bullets pierced his coronary heart, lungs, and intestines. The officers then repeatedly sprayed his bottom and face with rubber bullets as he lay face down, dying. Not glad, the officers then sicced a police canine on {the teenager}’s useless physique.
The occasions main as much as Harris’ deadly police encounter started with the officers driving in an unmarked car, tailing a car occupied by Harris and three different youths. The officers believed the younger males had been concerned in a string of robberies within the Phoenix space.
Over a 12-hour interval, the officers maintained their surveillance till the group dedicated a theft at an area What-A-Burger restaurant. The officers watched the theft play out, regardless of the hazard through which it could have positioned clients. They adopted the car down a desert grime street exterior of Phoenix earlier than they determined to make an arrest.
With out activating any siren alert, the officers ensnared the youths’ car with a hooking machine bringing it to a cease, after which they rushed the automobile and threw a flash grenade inside, beautiful the occupants.
At that time, Harris exited the car and tried to flee.
Two officers concerned within the deadly capturing, Kristopher Bertz and David Norman, gave conflicting statements about how that capturing unfolded. Bertz claimed Harris was armed with a weapon and pointed it on the officers as he fled. The officers discovered a gun on the scene, nevertheless it had no rounds in it and was by no means linked to Harris or anybody else within the car.
Phoenix Legal Court docket Decide Sarah Cohen later discovered that Harris didn’t level a gun on the officers as he ran away.
The PhxPD and Maricopa County District Lawyer’s Workplace performed joint investigations that discovered the officers acted inside police coverage in reference to the capturing loss of life of Harris.
Bertz stays on energetic obligation with the police division, whereas Norman has resigned. He resigned after he shot at so many individuals the 12 months earlier than that it triggered an alert by his supervisor, as The Phoenix New Occasions reported.
Following his resignation, Norman advised the cop-oriented podcast, The Trendy Cop, that:
“I used to be a f***ing savage. I actually sought these occasions [like Jacob Harris]. I wished these experiences. I used to be tremendous aggressive. The vast majority of my profession, you get an officer-involved capturing and get three days off … So that you sort of hope it’s in your Friday.”
In October 2021, a federal district courtroom decide dismissed a wrongful loss of life lawsuit introduced by Jacob Harris’ father, Roland, in opposition to Bertz and Norman, in addition to in opposition to the Metropolis of Phoenix.
That case is at the moment on attraction earlier than the Ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals.
However the dismissal of that lawsuit, the PhxPD is likely one of the nation’s most violent regulation enforcement companies.
Within the decade previous Harris’ capturing loss of life, the PhxPD killed 148 folks, in accordance with knowledge from Mapping Police Violence.
In 2018, the 12 months earlier than Harris’ capturing loss of life, the PhxPD shot extra folks than any regulation enforcement company nationwide.
This horrific stage of police-on-citizen violence and different discriminatory policing practices compelled the U.S. Justice Division to launch a civil rights investigation of the PhxPD and the Metropolis of Phoenix.
So how did the Maricopa County District Lawyer’s Workplace reply after clearing mendacity officer Bertz and self-described “savage” officer Norman?
They charged Jacob Harris’ three companions within the car—Jeremiah Triplett, 20; Sariah Busani, 19; and Johnny Reed, 14;–with homicide below the state’s “felony homicide statute”—a controversial “regulation of events” doctrine that allows prosecutors in not less than 13 states, together with Texas, to cost any social gathering related to a criminal offense that leads to somebody’s loss of life, together with suspects killed by police, with felony homicide.
Texas is the one state that permits the loss of life penalty below the regulation of events if the jury finds past an affordable doubt that a person deliberately prompted loss of life or may moderately foresee somebody’s loss of life throughout the fee or tried fee of a felony. This implies a non-shooter could be put to loss of life if it was moderately foreseeable somebody is perhaps killed throughout the fee of a felony. This contains co-conspirators killed by police.
In August 2021, BuzzFeed Information reported that 22 folks had been charged with felony homicide for deaths brought on by police since 2010, of which 13 had been convicted.
For the reason that savage homicide of Jacob Harris, the PhxPD, and the Maricopa County District Lawyer’s Workplace have performed every thing, authorized and unlawful, to cowl up the details surrounding {the teenager}’s loss of life.
However one 12 months after his son’s homicide, Roland Harris delivered this message to the PhxPD by means of the native media:
“I’m not a weak man, and I need to inform David Norman and Officer Bertz [that] you murdered the improper child this time. Your days are over. You simply don’t realize it but. You’ll be able to rely your days, get pleasure from your time as a police officer as a result of it’s coming to an finish. We permit these officers to get away with that we consider the tales they inform. Had I not spoken, up we wouldn’t be right here immediately.”
The legal professional representing the PhxPD, Steve Serbalik, advised the identical media outlet:
“The undisputed details present that Jacob Harris and others that he was with had been concerned in violent incidents, together with pointing weapons at harmless civilians as a part of armed robberies. When the police confronted Mr. Harris and the others who had been with him, Mr. Harris didn’t give up. As an alternative, with a gun in hand, Mr. Harris made different selections. Members of the Phoenix Police Particular Project Unit, together with Norman and Bertz, at all times hope suspects won’t commit crimes and, if suspects are confronted by police, that they are going to peacefully give up. On this case, it was the actions of Mr. Harris and the opposite suspects with him who engaged in harmful felonies that led to this end result.”
Lawyer Serbalik’s assertion is crammed with so many misrepresentations and distorted details that it begs a response.
First, Harris and his three companions had not been arrested for or convicted of, any armed robberies earlier than the What-A-Burger theft. The particular crimes unit merely “suspected” that that they had been concerned in different robberies.
Second, no matter hazard the “harmless civilians” had been positioned in throughout the What-A-Burger theft, the officers had been complicit in it as a result of they watched the theft unfold and happen.
Third, all of the suspects couldn’t have been armed throughout the What-A-Burger theft. The police discovered one gun on the scene of the arrest. That gun was empty, and there have been no bullet casings that match the gun.
Fourth, the officers didn’t activate their sirens to sign to the occupants of the Harris car that they had been regulation enforcement officers. They merely ensnared the car with a hook, charged the car unannounced as police, threw a stun grenade contained in the car, and murdered Harris when he exited the car and tried to flee.
Fifth, and at last, the officers, significantly Norman and Bertz, sprayed Harris’ limp physique, because it lay face down, with rubber bullets earlier than they sicced a police canine on his useless physique.
That was the work of “police savages” as former officer Norman likes to explain himself—and it’s an inherent attribute in most particular crimes models, as we described in February 1, 2023 in regards to the savage homicide of Tyre Nichols by 5 members of the Memphis Police Division’s former particular crimes unit known as the “Scorpions.”
The “savages” of those “particular” police models particularly goal younger black males to shoot to kill earlier than arrest and to brutalize after arrest.
We will solely hope that the U.S. Justice Division will deliver “justice” to Roland Harris with the indictment of Officers Norman and Bertz.
