In early August 2014, John Crawford III was fatally shot by Beavercreek, Ohio police as he walked around a Walmart with an air rifle that he'd picked up from a shelf in the sporting goods section.
Today his family filed a federal lawsuit against Beavercreek Police Department and Walmart. Among the details of the lawsuit was this stunner:
The shooting happened August 5. Crawford was shopping at Walmart and picked up a BB gun that wasn't packaged and had been sitting on the store shelf for two days, the Crawford family's lawyers said Monday.
The air rifle, that was made to look like a real rifle, was sitting on a shelf for at least two days before this tragic incident.
And as far as the Beavercreek Police Department, the lawsuit says the officers didn't make any effort to assess what kind of threat, if any, John Crawford III really was:
When the two officers located Crawford, "he was talking on a cell phone held in his right hand, with no other customers in his vicinity, and with his left side and back visible to the two police officers. Mr. Crawford was holding the Pellet Rifle in his left hand pointed down at the floor," the suit continued.
Williams shot and killed Crawford "approximately one second after Defendant Williams or Darkow first made contact with him," the suit said. "As a result, Mr. Crawford was shot before he even had time to react to the officer's presence, much less to comply with any verbal commands Defendants Williams or Darkow may have made."
The Justice Department has an ongoing investigation of the shooting.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...awford-III-s-family-to-sue-Walmart-and-police
