PWB Police Without Borders 4th Quarter 2016 " More on the Belt"

policewithoutorders.com 4 th quarter <strong>2016</strong>
investigators, the officers opened
fire, shooting 139 times.
Brelo himself fired 34 shots at the
car and then climbed onto the hood
of the Chevy and fired 15 more
times “at close range” through the
windshield, state investigation
records show.
In a statement to investigators with
the Ohio attorney general’s office,
Brelo did not deny firing the shots
but said he believed gunfire was
coming from inside the vehicle.
“I’ve never been so afraid in my
life,” he said. “I thought my partner
and I would be shot and that we
were going to be killed.”
A grand jury indicted Brelo on two
counts of voluntary manslaughter,
saying he acted in a “fit of rage” and
“under the influence of sudden
passion.”
A lawyer for Brelo, whose trial
began Monday, declined to
comment.
Stinson, the Bowling Green
criminologist, said it is often the
case that questionable police
shootings are an act of passion.
Sometimes, he said, the encounters
start with something as simple as a
traffic stop and escalate when
someone fails to obey the officer’s
directions.
“They are used to giving commands
and people obeying,” said Stinson,
who previously worked as a police
officer. “They don’t like it when
people don’t listen to them, and
things can quickly become violent
when people don’t follow their
orders.”
Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor Erica
Barnhill asks a state witness about details of a
crime-scene photo, above left, that shows
bullet holes in the windshield of a Chevy
Malibu in which two unarmed people, Timothy
Russell and Malissa Williams, were killed after
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