Ex-Officer Who Shot Woman, Wounded Cop, Gets Probation

By DAVE COLLINS, Related Press

A former Connecticut police officer who opened hearth at an unarmed couple’s automotive in 2019, wounding a girl and one other officer in New Haven, was sentenced Friday to probation and neighborhood service.

The sentence imposed on former Hamden Officer Devin Eaton didn’t sit effectively with Stephanie Washington, who was 22 when she was struck by a number of bullets fired by Eaton and suffered critical accidents together with a fractured pelvis and backbone. Eaton fired his gun a complete of 13 instances.

“What does justice appear to be?” she mentioned outdoors the courthouse, in line with Connecticut Public Radio.

Black neighborhood leaders who had protested the taking pictures had been upset and shocked by the sentence. Eaton and the couple within the automotive had been all Black. Prosecutors had sought jail time for Eaton.

“I imagine that could be a type of complete injustice,” the Rev. Dr. Boise Kimber, senior pastor at First Calvary Baptist Church in New Haven, instructed The Related Press in a telephone interview Friday.

“We’re in denial as a rustic about gun violence,” he mentioned. “Black persons are being killed by cops and now folks and infants are being killed by white supremacists. What a denial as we speak. This choose is admittedly sending a message to the Black neighborhood.”

Eaton, who resigned from the police pressure in January, apologized to Washington through the sentencing earlier than New Haven Superior Court docket Choose Brian Fischer. Eaton pleaded no contest to felony assault in January and agreed to serve as much as 18 months in jail, whereas retaining the precise to argue for much less or no jail time through the sentencing, which his lawyer did.

Fischer sentenced Eaton to 3 years of probation and 450 hours of neighborhood service. A message in search of remark from Fischer was left with a Judicial Department spokesperson.

Eaton’s lawyer, Gregory Cerritelli, mentioned Eaton believed, due to info relayed by a dispatcher, that an armed suspect in an tried theft was within the automotive he stopped and was compelled to make a split-second choice to make use of lethal pressure when the driving force started getting out of the automobile. Cerritelli believes Eaton’s use of lethal pressure was applicable.

“Devin Eaton is just not Derek Chauvin,” Cerritelli instructed the AP, referring to the previous Minneapolis officer who killed George Floyd in 2020. “There is not any racial part to this in any respect. Everybody concerned on this case was African American. … This isn’t a rogue, malicious police officer who engages in gratuitous acts of violence.”

Eaton stopped the couple’s automotive in New Haven on April 16, 2019, as a result of it matched the outline of a automotive linked to a reported tried armed theft in Hamden, police mentioned. Washington’s boyfriend, Paul Witherspoon III, was driving and Washington was within the passenger seat.

A fuel station clerk had referred to as within the tried armed theft however later instructed police he had not seen a gun. Surveillance video reveals Witherspoon showing to argue with one other man however not robbing him.

Eaton’s physique digicam video reveals Witherspoon beginning to exit the automotive and showing to boost his palms when Eaton begins taking pictures. Witherspoon then shortly will get again into the automobile. He was not injured.

A Yale College officer, Terrance Pollock, responded to the visitors cease and fired his gun thrice on the automotive. However New Haven State’s Legal professional Patrick Griffin mentioned in his investigative report of the taking pictures that Pollock was justified as a result of he believed Eaton and Witherspoon had been exchanging gunfire.

Pollock suffered a graze wound from a bullet fired by Eaton, officers mentioned.

Griffin decided Eaton’s use of lethal pressure was not justified and the officer was charged with assault and reckless endangerment.

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