{"id":13086,"date":"2018-08-28T23:22:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T23:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13086"},"modified":"2018-08-28T23:22:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T23:22:58","slug":"ex-officer-roy-oliver-guilty-of-murder-for-killing-jordan-edwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13086","title":{"rendered":"Ex-officer Roy Oliver guilty of murder for killing Jordan Edwards"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Texas jury has found a white former police officer who shot and killed<\/a> an unarmed black teenager last year guilty of murder.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roy Oliver shot into a car full of teenagers as they were leaving a party in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs in April 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fifteen-year-old Jordan Edwards, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was struck and killed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s been a hard year … I’m just really happy,” Edwards’s father, Odell, told reporters at the courthouse after the verdict on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time of the shooting, Oliver claimed the vehicle was trying to run over his partner, but several witness accounts and body-cam footage showed the car was moving away from the officer.<\/p>\n

Oliver was fired<\/a> from the Balch Springs police force in May 2017 after police admitted the video of the shooting contradicted Oliver’s initial statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local reporters, who were present in the courtroom on Tuesday as the verdict was read, reported that there were hugs, claps and cheers from the family of Edwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Odell Edwards, father of Jordan Edwards, gets a hug from Dallas County district attorney Faith Johnson after hearing a guilty of murder verdict [Rose Baca\/The Dallas Morning News via AP] [Daylife]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Oliver faces between five and 99 years in prison for the murder. His sentencing hearing began immediately after the trial. The former police officer was\u00a0acquitted of manslaughter and aggravated assault.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

‘Not just about Jordan’<\/h2>\n

Daryl Washington, Edwards’s lawyer, said the verdict is not just about justice for the young teenager’s family but for the families of all unarmed black people killed by police.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“This case is not just about Jordan,” Washington told reporters. “It’s about Tamir Rice,\u00a0<\/span>it’s about Walter Scott, it’s about Alton Sterling, it’s about every unarmed African American who has been killed and who has not got justice.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Washington Post Fatal Force database<\/a>,\u00a0more than 980 people were killed by police in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Monica Tunstle-Garrett, left, of Mesquite, Texas, and Al Woolum, right of North Richland Hills, Texas, light candles as the arrive at a vigil for Jordan Edwards in Balch Springs, Texas, Thursday, May 4, 2017. (AP Photo\/Tony Gutierrez) [Daylife]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The\u00a0Guardian\u00a0identified<\/a>\u00a0more than 1,090 police killings the previous year.<\/p>\n

Nearly a quarter of those killed by police in 2016 were African Americans, although the group accounted for roughly 12 percent of the total US population.<\/p>\n

According to watchdog group The Sentencing Project, African American men are six times more likely to be arrested than white men.<\/p>\n

These disparities, particularly the killing of African Americans by police, has prompted the rise of the Black Lives Matter<\/a> movement, a popular civil rights movement aimed at ending police violence and dismantling structural racism.<\/p>\n

‘Finally’<\/h2>\n

Online, many called Tuesday’s verdict a “small”, but “significant” step for justice for unarmed people killed by police.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Phil Stinson, a criminologist <\/span> <\/span> at Bowling Green State University, only 91 police officers<\/a> in the US have been charged with murder or manslaughter resulting from an on-duty shooting since 2005. Less than 40 have been\u00a0convicted<\/a>\u00a0of a crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This is a big deal,” tweeted Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund of the\u00a0National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

This is a big deal. #JordanEdwards<\/a>. https:\/\/t.co\/GGnixJVCZW<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) August 28, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Twitter user, Ben Frank, wrote: “Finally, a cop was found guilty of murdering a black man. Hopefully this will be the new norm and [teach] these cops they just can’t murder us and get away with it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Finally, a cop was found guilty of murdering a black man. Hopefully, this will be a new norm and theach these cops they just can’t murder us and get away with it. #JordanEdwards<\/a> #Dallas<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 $Ben Frank$ (@Let_Me_B_Frank) August 28, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Angie Thomas, author of the book The Hate You Give, and others pointed out that the verdict came on the same day as the anniversary murder of Emmet Till, a 14-year-old African American who was kidnapped and brutally killed in 1955 in Mississippi. Although two white men confessed to the murder after they were\u00a0acquitted by an all-white jury, experts say details around the murder remain unclear. The US Department of Justice recently announced<\/a> it was reviving its investigation into the case, which became a focal point of the civil rights movement in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s not lost on me that Jordan Edwards received justice on the anniversary of Emmett Till’s murder,” Thomas tweeted. “Trying to process this.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

It’s not lost on me that Jordan Edwards received justice on the anniversary of Emmett Till’s murder. Trying to process this.<\/p>\n

\u2014 T’ChAngie Thomas (@angiecthomas) August 28, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

63 years ago today a 14-year-old Black child named Emmett Till was murdered. His killers got away with it. <\/p>\n

Today, a police officer was convicted of murdering a 15-year old Black child named Jordan Edwards.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Daryle Lamont Jenkins (@DLamontJenkins) August 28, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Texas jury has found a white former police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager last year guilty of murder.\u00a0\u00a0 Roy Oliver shot into a car full of teenagers as they were leaving a party in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs in April 2017.\u00a0 Fifteen-year-old Jordan Edwards, who was sitting in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}