Re: Family wants answers after pallbearer killed by officers

[DOJ Corruption]

In article <t2rved$3r0s8$3...@news.freedyn.de>
<governo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The DOJ needs a housecleaning and some skull crushings.
>

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Jason Arnie Owens helped carry his
father’s casket to the hearse, then turned to embrace a
relative. He never made it to the cemetery.

As mourners gathered outside a northern West Virginia funeral
home on Aug. 24, two plainclothes officers with a fugitive
warrant swooped in from separate vehicles, called Owens' name
and shot him dead, spattering his 18-year-old son's shirt with
blood as horrified loved ones looked.

"There was no warning whatsoever,” family friend Cassandra
Whitecotton said.

In the blink of an eye, stunned friends and family already
mourning one member lost another. Now, they want answers — not
just why Owens was shot but why the encounter happened the way
it did.

Law enforcement officials aren't explaining much right now,
citing an ongoing investigation. Owens, 37, was wanted on a
fugitive warrant, but the U.S. Marshals Service hasn't said what
it was for. The agency also said in a statement that he had a
gun when members of a fugitive task force approached. Multiple
witnesses contend that's not true.

Whitecotton and others who stood just feet away said Owens was
unarmed, had been hugging his aunt, Evelyn O’Dell, and was fired
on immediately after his name was called. Witnesses also dispute
the U.S. Marshals' assertion that first aid was performed right
away, before emergency medical services arrived.

"They yelled Jason’s name. They just said ‘Jason’ and then
started firing,” Whitecotton said. “There was no identifications
they were U.S. Marshals — anything. They did not render this man
any aid at all. Never once they touched him to render any aid
whatsoever.”

As relatives prepared for services Friday for Owens, a state
police investigation of the shooting was underway. But patience
in the community is wearing thin.

Relatives and supporters protested outside the Harrison County
Courthouse last week, accusing law enforcement authorities of
overreach in the death of Owens, who was white. A Facebook page
called Justice for Jason Owens has swelled to about 800 members
— more than half of the population of Nutter Fort, where Owens
was killed.

Underlying the unanswered questions is whether some boundary of
decency had been crossed in arresting a man in the midst of
burying his father.

“If they’ve been searching for someone and they finally figure
out where they are, they’re going to get them,” said Tracy L.
Hahn, a Columbus, Ohio-based security consultant who retired
after 32 years in law enforcement, including as deputy police
chief at Ohio State University.

Hahn said she knows agencies that have gone to funerals but have
waited until afterward to approach the person.

“There must be some extenuating circumstance that they felt the
urgency to arrest him then instead of waiting, if there was some
risk factor, an escape risk or something like that,” Hahn said.

Family members aren’t so sure. They say it only adds to their
sense of disrespect that the agencies involved feel no
obligation to address their questions.

“We want to know why you would do this in front of his family,”
said Owens’ cousin, Mandy Swiger. “And what gives you the right
to do that to an unarmed man?”

Acting U.S. Marshal Terry Moore said he couldn’t answer
questions during the investigation and messages left with state
police weren’t returned.

It’s not clear whether video exists from police bodycams, a
police vehicle dashboard or the funeral home itself. Unlike
major cities where detailed incident reports and video footage
are released after fatal police shootings — sometimes within
hours — that rarely happens in West Virginia.

West Virginia law exempts police from having to release video
footage during an investigation. And the U.S. Marshals Service
office said it did not write a detailed incident report about
the shooting, referring to the news release that withheld Owens’
name and other details.

Owens had been in trouble with the law before. He was sentenced
in 2018 to three to 13 years in prison for fleeing a Harrison
County sheriff’s deputy and trying to strangle him during a
scuffle. He was released on parole in April 2021.

But Swiger said he committed a parole violation “for not
checking in just once. And that’s why he promised his mom after
the funeral he would turn himself in.”

Whitecotton said she was smoking a cigarette after the service
when an SUV came flying down the side street where the hearse
would pull out.

"It about hit me, so I jumped back up on the curb and kind of
looked at him like, ‘What’s your problem?’” she said. A man in
shorts and a T-shirt jumped out, leaving his door open.

Swiger said a white truck with another plainclothes officer
inside almost hit her mother’s vehicle as the truck sped into
the parking lot. Swiger said Owens was shot from different
directions and estimated as many as 40 people were in the area.
She, too, said she didn't see a gun in Owens' hands.

Some mourners instinctively rushed toward Owens after he fell to
the ground, Swiger said, but were told by one of the officers,
“You step back or I’ll shoot you.”

Whitecotton said she has lived in much larger cities such as
Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth.

“Never in my life have I dealt with anything like this,” she
said. "I would expect it there, honestly. But not here.”

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