Warning: the video above is disturbing.
A police officer who fatally shot a Texas man during a 2018 traffic stop has been charged with criminally negligent homicide. Arlington police officer Bau Tran was indicted Wednesday in the death of O’Shae Terry.
Body cam footage released last year showed the incident. Terry had been pulled over during a traffic stop. Video showed him apparently putting up the windows up, and turning on the vehicle. Tran told him to stop. Terry said he wasn’t going anywhere. The officer, who was standing by the passenger side window, opened fire.
Arlington Lt. Christopher Cook told The Associated Press that the officer was put on leave pending an administrative investigation.
The reaction from Lee Merritt, an attorney for Terry’s estate, was actually pretty mixed. He said that Tran should’ve been charged with murder.
“We are certainly happy that there will be a chance for some form of justice in this case, but if anyone else had done this it would have been murder,” he said.
“It’s nothing any family would want to go through.”
O’Shae Terry’s mother told reporters that a weight was lifted off her shoulders when @ArlingtonPD cop Bau Tran was indicted in her son’s shooting death. @wfaa
Tran faces a criminally negligent homicide charge. pic.twitter.com/1K1d8AbR8n
— Matt Howerton (@HowertonNews) May 1, 2019
You may be able to guess the reaction from Trans’ lawyer Randy Moore.
“Obviously we’re disappointed that he was indicted,” he told NBC DFW. “Things happened pretty quickly and once the driver made the decision to roll up the window and drive away, then that limited the options that the officer had.”
[Screengrab via Arlington Police Department]
