On Saturday September 14th, Jonathan Ferrell was driving his car down a North Carolina highway in Charlotte when he crashed his car on the side of the road. The crash was so sever that investigators believed that he had to climb through the back of his car in order to get out. He then went to the nearest house for help and knocked repeatedly but the women that was home at the time panicked and called 9-1-1. She reported it as breaking and entering. When police officers arrived at the scene the saw a man matching the description running towards them. At first one of them used a stun gun but when it missed, officer Randall Kerrick used his gun to shoot and was successful in Ferrels death. After investigation of the case, Ferrel was thought to be running for help and the three officers were put on paid leave. Kerrick was arrested for manslaughter which is considered a felony.
Based on the article, if a few things had gone differently, this situation could have been prevented. For instance, if Ferrell had just gone to a different house when no one answered the first one, or if the women had just waited for him to leave the front door instead of calling 9-1-1. Also if the police had just warned Ferrel to stop before getting closer they wouldn't have felt the need to shoot him. But in their defense, it was silly of Ferrel to run towards cops while looking beat up and bloody from the accident. This whole situation was carless and resulted in death and felony. It just goes to show that proper actions must be made when in an emergency and that rational thinking could save your life if ever presented with a situation as this one.
It's awful that this happened. I agree with Jack in him saying that it could've been preventable had it worked out a little bit differently. I think that the cop is definitely guilty of his death, not only because he shot the gun that killed him, but also because I think that there's some sort of law that says that they have to warn their target they're about to fire upon unless the target is firing upon them. It was a mess and it shouldn't have happened.
ReplyDeleteRational thinking is definently a necessity in an emergency situation. However, in many emergencies, it is difficult to subdue our panic and adrenaline so that they do not control our common sense and logical thinking. This is evident in the history of our nation especially during wartime. In WWII all Japanese-Americans were put in interment camps after Pearl Harbor due to the fear of them assisting the enemy. So, even for the leaders of our nation it is difficult to control panic so that we make good decisions.
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