Police killed his son. Prosecutors charged the teen's friends with his murder.

[Nevilledog]

https://theappeal.org/phoenix-police-killed-jacob-harris-felony-murder-arizona/

Content warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of police violence and footage of police officers killing a 19-year-old.

Roland Harris has watched his son die a hundred times. The final moments of his life, documented in thermal video captured by a police aircraft, are burned into Harris’s mind: His teenage son, Jacob, steps out of a car. He runs from the police. Two seconds later, officers open fire. Bullets pierce his heart, lungs, and intestines. He falls to the ground, bleeding. Police pepper him with rubber bullets, hitting him in the face and backside. He is dying in the dirt. Then officers sic a dog on him.

It has been more than four years since a Phoenix police officer killed Jacob Harris, on January 11, 2019. The police department has since drawn a federal investigation into its use of deadly force. But Roland Harris’s fight for accountability has only left him with more questions: Why did police delete text messages from the night of his son’s shooting? Why are Jacob’s friends the only ones who have been held responsible for his death? How could anyone say his son’s killing was justified?

Harris’s search for answers has come at a significant cost: The cop who killed his son has demanded he pay the officer’s $40,000 attorney fees after a federal court dismissed Harris’s wrongful death suit. Harris and his wife split, in part, he says, because he became so deeply consumed by getting justice for his son.

“I have a void in my life that is never going to be filled,” Harris said. “Even when justice is served. It’s going to hit even harder. Because then I’ll have to focus on him not being here.”

Police have fought Harris every step of the way, refusing to disclose even basic information about his son’s death. It took six months for the department to release its report on the shooting, and even then, it only did so after he threatened to sue, Harris said. Police still have not returned his son’s belongings. But Roland Harris’s memories of Jacob remain fresh.

*snip*

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Nick Knudsen 🇺🇸
@NickKnudsenUS
·
Follow
This needs attention!

In 2019, a Phoenix cop shot Jacob Harris in the back as he ran away.

His friends were wrongfully charged for the murder.

This video of the shooting was just uncovered & released by @theappeal, proving the cops’ story was a lie.


Watch on Twitter
8:52 AM · Mar 14, 2023

[Kaleva]

1. Harris and friends were involved in an armed robbery

"Yes, he broke the law. He should have been arrested. He should have been tried and convicted and did his time and rehabilitate and come home and never made that mistake again in his life because I would have made sure of it. But to be killed and tortured like that over $1,200? It’s sickening.”"

https://www.12news.com/article/news/investigations/i-team/father-of-man-killed-by-police-questions-why-officers-didnt-render-aid/75-b4fc7f61-24d2-4c62-8a5f-761b8bd3bb50


Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[stopdiggin]

3. yes. why is this presented as such a bewildering

head scratcher? Death occurs during commission (or as culmination) of violent crime. Felony murder. A thoroughly well known legal principle. And in this case, apparently multiple suspected cases of same type of (violent) offense. The only real question here, is why we continue to gloss over contributing factors and circumstance involved in these deaths. (regrettable as they might be) All of these cases are not Breonna Taylors.

[Kaleva]

7. Living a violent life can have fatal consequences

[Coventina]

2. kicking for visibility n/t

[Torchlight]

4. K&R.

[uponit7771]

5. So ... People have been going through the punishment of judicial process why the cops are free?!?!!

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. K&R. FTP.