Welp. It looks like we have a protest on our hands in a neighboring city. A guy jumps on the moving truck of an off-duty police officer, breaks of a windshield wiper arm and starts beating in the windshield and the cop shoots the guy and he dies. OR, a man was running across the street to his house and was hit by the truck and the cop shot him. 

Link

Protesters march on Fayetteville for second night after black man, Jason Walker, 37, was 'run over and shot dead by off-duty cop after he allegedly jumped on his truck in front of his wife and kid': Officer is put on paid leave as FBI investigates

This is a synopsis of the story-

-Jason Walker, a black man, was shot dead by off-duty police officer on Saturday in Fayetteville, North Carolina
-Cop, identified as Lieutenant Jeffrey Hash, claimed Walker jumped on his truck and beat the windshield
-Hash said he felt he had to protect his wife and daughter who were inside the vehicle
-Police say a wiper was torn from the truck and used to break the windshield as Hash had claimed
-But witness Elizabeth Ricks claimed instead Walker was trying to cross the road when Hash hit him
-Walker, 37, was pronounced dead at the scene after trauma nurse Ricks tried to save his life
-FBI have started 'initial assessment' to check for potential civil rights violations
-Protesters gathered for a second day on Monday calling for answers in the case


I will say in my small town there have been many occasions when someone was crossing a busy road and got hit by a vehicle and I've seen this when in Fayetteville. I've been rerouted several times in my 10 years here because traffic was blocked so EMS and the local FD could get the people and wreckage out of the road. So that could be what actually happened here as one of the witnesses said. On the other hand, it's possible the man jumped on the truck. Why? Who knows? The cop was off duty with his family in his truck.

I'm curious as to why the FBI is involved "to determine whether there were potential civil rights violations." No one crossed state lines to make it a federal case. When did civil rights issues become a federal matter? 

In another article it states:

In a video taken by passerby Chase Sorrell in the aftermath of the shooting, Hash is heard telling a Fayetteville police officer that Walker jumped onto the hood of his pickup, pulled off the windshield wiper and began beating on the windshield.

Sorrell's girlfriend, Elizabeth Ricks, said she attempted to render aid to Walker and claims Walker was hit by the truck and was thrown onto the hood before Hash stepped from it and fired several shots at him.



Hawkins also said the black box in Hash's truck did not register hitting "any person or thing" and the only injuries to his Walker's body were gunshot wounds.

"That black box was crucial to determine that vehicle did not impact anything or anyone," she said.



It will be interesting to know how much the black box will come into play in the investigation. I've often wondered about getting a dashcam for my truck to use as a record of events in case I'm ever in an accident of any kind. Around here I'm as likely to come into contact with a deer as I am another vehicle. I don't live in a city where traffic is a big problem so I haven't really worried about it, though traffic here as gotten exponentially worse in the last 5-6 years and we don't have the infrastructure for the extra traffic. 

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. So far we have not had any major uprisings in and around my area but this is the second officer involved shooting of a black man in Fayetteville due to a traffic situation in the past week. Regardless of why the men were shot the media is going to have a field day with it as evidence of the way this article started. 

A Cumberland County Sheriff's Office lieutenant is on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation after he shot and killed a man while off duty Saturday, Sheriff Ennis Wright announced Monday.

An unarmed Jason Walker, 37, was shot and killed by Hash about 2:15 p.m. Saturday in front of his home.

While factual, it automatically puts the cop at a disadvantage by not providing context. They automatically assign guilt to the cop without assigning responsibility to the man for running across the road to his house, or jumping onto the truck and beating the windshield with a wiper he broke off. Whichever happened.

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