By Matt Ferner

University of Cincinnati police Officer Ray Tensing spoke to 43-year-old Samuel DuBose for less than two minutes on July 19 before firing a single fatal shot into DuBose’s head.

A video released Wednesday offers the first public look at Tensing’s encounter with DuBose — an encounter that began when the officer pulled DuBose over for driving without a front license plate. Tensing would later claim in a police report that he’d shot DuBose because he was being dragged by DuBose’s car and was “almost run over.” The video seems to contradict that account.

After about a minute of Tensing repeatedly asking DuBose for his driver’s license, he moves to open the car door while asking DuBose to take his seat belt off. DuBose, attempting to shut the car door, says “I didn’t even do nothing” as he turns the key in the ignition and starts the car. Tensing orders DuBose to stop, and in a sequence that a county prosecutor later described as taking “maybe a second,” Tensing appears to reach into the car with one hand, draw his weapon with the other and fire a fatal shot at DuBose’s head. It appears that the vehicle doesn’t even move forward at all until DuBose is hit — at which point the car rolls down the street, jumps a curb and crashes. 

Tensing’s tactics and violence — described by Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Deters as “the most asinine act” he’d ever seen a police officer commit — were key factors in the murder and voluntary manslaughter charges brought against Tensing in a grand jury’s indictment Tuesday.

“People want to believe that Mr. DuBose had done something violent toward the officer,” Deters told reporters Wednesday. “He did not.”

He added that DuBose did not pose a threat to Tensing, and that the officer had lied in …read more

Source:: Weed Feed