Jury deadlock in Kerrick trial

The jury is considering the fate of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Randall Kerrick, who is charged with voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell almost two years ago.

In response to the mistrial, protesters have already begun to shut down the intersection around the courthouse.

Ferrell, a former football player at Florida A&M University, was living in Charlotte with his fiancée. They have not decided whether to seek a retrial.

Prosecutors said Ferrell started to run because he was afraid for his life after another officer pointed a Taser at him. Kerrick testified that he repeatedly fired because Ferrell kept charging at him and he didn’t think his weapon was even working.

At around 4:15 p.m. ET. the jury foreman told Judge Richard C. Ervin that the panel was deadlocked. As a result, a mistrial has been declared.

The foreman said “a number of discussions” had been held since the jury’s lunch break.

Prosecutor Adren Harris said officials will review the case and consider whether to retry it.

Kerrick’s case is one of several in the United States in which a white police officer has been accused of using unjustified force against an unarmed black man. The killings have touched off a nationwide debate on race and policing.

Defense attorneys targeted Ferrell’s condition at the time of the shooting, pointing to the fact that he had smoked marijuana and drank alcohol before the wreck that led to the deadly confrontation. He used the same TV screen that was used to show dashcam video that recorded the final moments before Officer Randall Kerrick shot Jonathan Ferrell in September 2013.

Judge Robert C. Ervin declared a mistrial Friday afternoon after four days of deliberations.

Ervin told the jurors it’s “their duty to do whatever you can to reach a verdict” in this case. Ferrell had crashed his auto and had gone to the house apparently for help, police have said.

As the courtroom emptied, Kerrick, who faced up to 11 years in prison, remained with his lawyers, looking relieved but unsmiling.

Defense attorney George Laughrun cited the 106th Psalm, and related it to police officers and their work. Police, including officer Kerrick, responded to a report of a breaking-and-entering in progress. “That they could not come out with the verdict”, a supporter of the Ferrell family said after the mistrial.

Protests also followed the deaths of two unarmed black men after encounters with police earlier this year in Baltimore and South Carolina. “They arrested Kerrick that day and charged him with voluntary manslaughter”.

“Regardless of what may happen now with respect to the pending charges against Officer Kerrick, we must continue to ask ourselves what we can do, what we must do to lessen our fear of each other, our misunderstanding of each other – fear and misunderstanding that can too often escalate when we find ourselves in tense or unfamiliar situations”, he said.