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US-CRIME-POLICE-SHOOTING
Former US policeman sues prosecutor who accused him of murder
CHICAGO, June 7, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A former US police officer, acquitted in a fatal shooting that caused months of protests in the US city of St Louis, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the prosecutor who accused him of murder.
Jason Stockley, who is white, was found not guilty in September of the murder of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black.
The 2011 shooting inflamed tensions between African American communities and police in the Midwestern city.
Stockley’s lawsuit claims the lead prosecutor in his case and an internal affairs detective engaged in defamation and malicious prosecution, and that he was only charged to relieve political pressure.
Federal law enforcement had reviewed the shooting and declined to prosecute Stockley, but St Louis’s former chief prosecutor Jennifer Joyce charged Stockley in 2016, citing new evidence.
“There was no new evidence that could possibly have supported a new conclusion that Stockley was guilty of murder,” the lawsuit claims.
Stockley, who resigned from the police force in 2013, shot the 24-year-old Smith after a high-speed chase. During the pursuit, he was recorded by the police car’s video camera saying, “Going to kill this motherfucker don’t you know it.”
Smith was a drug suspect and a gun was found in his car after the fatal shooting. Prosecutors claimed the officer planted the weapon.
In 2013, the city settled a lawsuit brought by Smith’s family for $900,000.
In September, a trial judge found prosecutors had failed to prove their case “beyond a reasonable doubt,” a standard required for a guilty verdict in a criminal trial.
Judge Timothy Wilson also concluded prosecutors could not persuasively show that the defendant had not acted in self-defense.
The verdict sparked days of violent protests in St Louis.
BSS/AFP/AU/08:05 hrs