Feds reviewing Ohio police shooting of unarmed black man

Associated Press

CINCINNATI

Two years after a white Ohio police officer fatally shot an unarmed black motorist in the head, the case is in the hands of federal authorities.

Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters says prosecutors have already given information to the U.S. attorney for southern Ohio, Benjamin J. Glassman, who said he will review the Ray Tensing case to determine the potential for prosecution on civil-rights charges.

An attorney for Sam DuBose’s family said they have drafted letter and other materials for federal authorities to consider.

DuBose’s sister Terina Allen said Tensing violated the 43-year-old DuBose’s civil right to life when the then-University of Cincinnati officer shot him during a traffic stop July 19, 2015.

Tensing, now 27, testified he feared being killed by DuBose’s car when DuBose tried to drive away.

After two juries deadlocked, Deters announced Tuesday he wouldn’t try Tensing a third time but hoped federal authorities would take the case.

Defense attorney Stewart Mathews said news of the federal review has tempered Tensing’s and his family’s relief that he won’t face a third murder trial.

“So that means that it is not over,” Mathews said.

Federal intervention in such cases dates to the 19th century Reconstruction era, when federal authorities moved to protect newly freed black people from being victimized when local authorities wouldn’t or couldn’t protect them.

DuBose family attorney Al Gerhardstein said the federal review offers a chance “to hold the officer accountable when the state system couldn’t. This is the very reason that federal criminal civil-rights laws exist.”

Among such cases are the 1991 police beating of black motorist Rodney King in Los Angeles, which resulted in jury convictions of two officers on civil-rights charges, and the federal convictions of police and others linked to the 1964 slayings of three civil-rights workers that inspired the movie “Mississippi Burning.”

Glassman offered no timetable, but Deters noted that such federal reviews can move slowly.