Pennsylvania Police Officer Acquitted In Shooting Death Of Unarmed Suspect

Pennsylvania police officer acquitted in shooting death of unarmed suspect.

A Pennsylvania jury on Thursday acquit­ted a police offi­cer of all charges in the fatal shoot­ing of an unarmed sus­pect as he lay in the snow, knocked to the ground by her stun gun.

After delib­er­at­ing for close to 11 hours, the jury acquit­ted Officer Lisa Mearkle, a vet­er­an of the Hummelstown Police Department, of third-degree mur­der, vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter and invol­un­tary manslaugh­ter in the death of David Kassick, 59, of Hummelstown.

A cen­ter­piece of the case against Mearkle, 37, was a video­tape record­ed by the stun gun she used to bring down Kassick in February in the small town about 10 miles east of Harrisburg, the state capital.

The jerky video played for the jury in Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas in Harrisburg. It shows Kassick face down as Mearkle is heard repeat­ed­ly shout­ing, “Show your hands!” Afterwards, two gun­shots ring out and a red spot appears on Kassick’s back.

One of Kassick’s rel­a­tives shout­ed “mur­der­er” after the ver­dict was read, local news site PennLive​.com reported.

In the cour­t­house lob­by, Mearkle told reporters she hoped to return to the police force that sus­pend­ed her after the shoot­ing. The police chief was not imme­di­ate­ly avail­able for comment.

“I’ve been to hell and back,” said Mearkle, break­ing into tears.

“We were always con­vinced that cit­i­zens would not sec­ond-guess a law enforce­ment offi­cer under these cir­cum­stances,” added her lawyer Brian Perry, who said dur­ing the tri­al that Mearkle act­ed out of fear for her life.

Kassick’s nephew, Kevin Fetter, told reporters that he still con­sid­ers Mearkle a murderer.

“She feared for her life from a man who was lay­ing on the ground. I think she mur­dered him in cold blood,” Fetter said.

Prosecutor Johnny Baer was not imme­di­ate­ly avail­able for comment.

The shoot­ing took place after Mearkle attempt­ed to pull over Kassick for an expired vehi­cle inspec­tion stick­er and he fled. Mearkle used her stun gun to bring him down. Perry had told jurors that as Kassick lay in the snow, his left hand appeared to be reach­ing into his coat, pre­sum­ably for a gun, and that caused the offi­cer to shoot.

Police lat­er found no weapon on Kassick, who served 10 years in fed­er­al prison for a hero­in sale that result­ed in a death.

Mearkle’s arrest for crim­i­nal homi­cide came dur­ing a nation­al wave of con­cern over police shoot­ings of unarmed sus­pects, many of them African-American. Both Mearkle and Kassick are white.
Pennsylvania police offi­cer acquit­ted in shoot­ing death of unarmed suspect