Ronald Gasser, Shooter In Joe McKnight’s Murder, Charged With Manslaughter

A Louisiana sheriff has announced charges against a man who shot dead a former National Football League player last week near New Orleans. Records from the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center show that authorities booked a man named Ronald Gasser into jail Monday.

The following day, Sheriff Normand of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department held a press conference during which he claimed that witness accounts of the incident were “factually incorrect”, and that Gasser shot McKnight three times from the interior of his vehicle through the passenger window, outside of which McKnight was standing.

Ronald Gasser was arrested on manslaughter charges for the fatal shooting of Joe McKnight.

Sheriff Normand said that witnesses had been afraid to come forward. So, I had a statement.

It’s not clear whether Gasser has an attorney.

“We started Thursday afternoon with a witness that lied”, he said, going on to say that this initial witness told police “three different stories in the space of an hour”.

Normand continued, “To the McKnight family: Thank you for your patience, your restraint, and your trust in the process”. When deputies arrived, Gasser handed them his gun and confessed to killing McKnight, Normand said.

“Mr. Gasser did not have an avenue for retreat”, he said.

Defending his methods, Normand said that by being patient and conducting business as they had, they were able to make an arrest.

Gasser shot McKnight three times from inside his vehicle while McKnight stood outside, Normand said.

There was a gun in the vehicle McKnight was driving.

“My grandson had a lot of people behind him”, she says.

He insisted the case, which has highlighted ongoing racial tensions across the country, had nothing to do with race.

When Gasser opened up the conference to questioning, a media member asked whether he understood why people were upset that a white man had initially gotten off with killing a black man. “One life was lost, but two people engaged in bad behavior that day”. And I’m sure you see the emotion in me because it’s not fair.

Now, Gasser has finally been arrested and charged with manslaughter, one that could land him behind bars for up to 40 years under Louisiana law. Gasser was taken into custody following the shooting, which happened in broad daylight at a red light, before being released later that night.

Gasser was questioned but not charged after the Thursday shooting, sparking outrage. “We have a witness that says that Mr. McKnight was driving erratically across the bridge”. He was drafted in the fourth round of the 2010 NFL Draft by the New York Jets, for whom he played three seasons.

Investigators said they don’t believe race played a factor in the McKnight shooting.