Posted on 07/12/2007 8:17:43 AM PDT by 300magnum
WILMINGTON - Eighteen New Hanover County residents gave former Deputy Chris Long the opportunity to move on with his life Wednesday. After more than two hours of discussions, a grand jury refused to indict the former sheriff's deputy on manslaughter charges for the Dec. 1 shooting death of Peyton Strickland, a college student from Durham. With that, state Attorney General Roy Cooper declared the case closed.
Time seemed to freeze as the judge read the decision. Members of Long's family, squeezed together on a courtroom bench, held their breath.
"No true bill," said Richmond County Judge Michael Beale.
Long, 35, doubled over and sobbed with relief. His wife clutched his hand. His mother whimpered.
Strickland's father, Don, sat perfectly still for a few moments, then slipped out the back as Long's family gathered in a tangle of hugs.
The Strickland family later issued a brief statement: "Our unarmed 18-year-old son Peyton was killed when Chris Long, a deputy sheriff, fired three bullets from a submachine gun through the front door of Peyton's house while he was answering the unlocked door. The failure of the grand jury to indict Long on any charge compounds our family's tragedy."
In December, a different New Hanover County grand jury declined to indict Long on a second-degree murder charge.
Law enforcement professionals in North Carolina considered Wednesday's decision a victory. Police organizations had watched the case closely, fearing that it could result in undue scrutiny of their split-second decisions. No officer in the state has been criminally prosecuted for killing someone in the line of duty since at least 2000.
"Today's decision is welcome news for all of us," said John Midgette, the director of the N.C. Police Benevolent Association. "The citizens spoke."
Able to trust judgment
The grand jury's refusal to indict Long gave officers more confidence in their immunity from criminal charges, particularly in New Hanover County.
"It clears the road for emergency response teams to use their best judgment, as flawed as it sometimes can be," said Frank Snyder, a Wilmington doctor who had worked alongside Long on the sheriff's department's emergency response team. "Everyone involved in this believes that [shooting Strickland] was a mistake now. But I wouldn't doubt that something like this would happen again."
In an affidavit, Long said the emergency response team of the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office had been called to search for a stolen PlayStation 3 video machine and arrest Strickland on robbery and assault charges. Long said deputies had been warned Strickland probably housed an arsenal of guns that could penetrate their body armor. Long said he mistook the sound of the unit's battering ram for gunshots when he shot Strickland through the closed front door of the home the student was renting in Wilmington.
Beale gave both Long and Don Strickland permission to address the grand jury -- a rare move. During his appearance Tuesday, Strickland countered Long's assessment of the threat Peyton Strickland posed, said Patrick Murphy, a prosecutor from the state Attorney General's Office. He didn't elaborate, and Don Strickland was unavailable for comment.
Long's law career over
Long's life had been on hold since the shooting. He lost his job a week later, ending a 10-year career spent primarily with the sheriff's emergency response team. Until recently, his family has gotten by mostly with help from friends and former co-workers.
"What Chris got was probably one of the greatest gifts he never anticipated," said Snyder, his friend. "He had all of his friends and all of the people at church gather around him and support him."
Michael McGuinness, one of Long's attorneys, said Long has found steady work. He knows his career in law enforcement is over, friends say.
McGuinness said he hopes Long's family can begin to heal now.
"I think all they want to do is get home and have lunch and start to get on with their lives," McGuinness said.
The Stricklands are trying to figure out how to get on with theirs. On Tuesday, Don Strickland leaned into a courtroom bench and thought about the summer he was supposed to have with his son.
He and Peyton had planned a monthlong fly-fishing and motorcycle trip to Montana.
(News researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this report.)
The shooting was an accident. The victim was a criminal. The deputy lost his job, the criminal is dead.
All is well.
Exactly.
“No, I believe that when cops go to apprehend dangerous criminals that sometimes bad things happen.”
What do you think of the Kathryn Johnson case?
Hard to know how to take this one.
Cop accidently kills violent criminal?
I’m not familiar with the name. Got a link?
That it was horrific and that the cops probably got less than what they deserved.
Serving a no knock warrant based on the word of a drug addict is lunacy.
The perp was a violent criminal and they had a reasonable expectation that he would be armed.
He committed a violent crime which forced the police to go an arrest him.
The police are not judge, jury and executioners. However, being a police officer is not a suicide pact either. They have to react in a split second to threats or they or one of their fellow officers might die in such situations.
Two separate grand juries heard all the facts and refused to indict the officer. That means that the grand juries didn't thing there was even enough evidence of a crime for this to go in front of a jury.
If the officer had benefit of all the information we have now, he wouldn't have shot the perp. However, based on what he knew at the time, he mistook the loud sharp crack of the ram hitting the door as the sound of a gunshot and put the perp down.
When you commit a violent crime and force the police to come and arrest you, you are risking that the police may mistake your actions or in this case something else, as you attacking them. We don't live in a perfect world without crime, and unfortunately the police have to go and arrest dangerous people, and it is extremely naive to expect that officers will be able to perfectly divine the intent of perps and properly interpret every detail of what happens during a high risk arrest.
That is why officers have immunity from prosecution in performing their duties unless they are grossly negligent of intentionally commit a criminal act.
These officers put their lives on the line to go an apprehend violent criminals. They don't deserve to be compared to Nazi murders whenever something goes wrong despite them making what are reasonable assumptions at the time. If the battering ram hit the right surface and the acoustics were right, I have little doubt that it could be mistaken for the sound of a gunshot.
Apparently two separate grand juries also considered his explanation credible since they didn't even indict him.
Too bad John Edwards wasn’t his dad. He could have had daddy’s staff get him a PS3 and been spared this whole mess.
Let’s see, he was identified by name by the victim, the stolen items were recovered from the apartment where he was shot and the other two guys who were there were both convicted and admitted to not only there roles but his as well.
I guess you could say he was convicted in abstentia.
“I guess you could say he was convicted in abstentia.”
Yea, he missed out on receiving a suspended sentence, probation, and paying restitution.
The problem I have is this type of warrant should NOT have been issued in this case (heck, in MOST cases).
Given the information the police had received about this individual and this case, I can see this type of warrant being issued.
The police have to act based on the information they have available. They had credible reports that this was a dangerous criminal. A risk warrant was issued for his arrest, so they rolled out the SWAT team to go get this guy.
The police do need to do their best to apprehend suspects with the least force necessary. I'm not suggesting the Police have the authority to just go and shoot people based on allegations, but in reality they do need to take appropriate precautions based on the information they have available.
The police also didn't just go after this guy on their own. A warrant was issued for his arrest.
If the people issuing the warrant screw up and don't do their jobs properly, that can result in bad things happening to innocent people. However, that is not the fault of the police executing that warrant and those Police. However, that didn't happen in this case.
The guy was a violent criminal, he had used a firearm in a crime. The high risk warrant was justified. What went wrong was a police officer misinterpreted a noise as a gunshot and took what would have been appropriate action if it had been a gunshot.
But if you have a better idea on how officers should arrest people charged with violent crimes when there is evidence that they may be extremely dangerous, please enlighten me.
Haven't we seen enough dangerous standoffs with police, including those where the suspect takes someone who happened to be in the house at the time hostage?
If you haven't noticed, a considerable number of violent criminals don't simply answer the door and go along peaceably just because the police ask nicely.
What's wrong with this statement?
Not ridiculous just expected and totally unjust.
So you are basically saying, if the unarmed kid had opened the door first, then the deputy blew his brains out, then you would not have a problem with that.
Wow.
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