Police officer charged with murder 5 years after on-duty shooting in St. Louis
Former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley and his partner spotted what they thought was a drug deal going down in the parking lot of Church's Chicken nearly five years ago, in December, 2011.
What happened over the next several minutes would land Stockley in jail and charged with first-degree murder on Monday, five years later.
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Stockley walked up to the car in question wielding, in addition to his department issued handgun, an AK-47 assault rifle he'd bought on his own and was carrying in violation of department policy.
Stockley pulled his handgun out and fired into the vehicle, missing the man inside.
In the police report following the car chase that followed, the officers said that the man in the car, 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black, reached for something.
Smith drove off and the officers chased him. They zoomed along at more than 80 miles per hour, according to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and crashed their SUV. The chase continued, during which Stockley, who is white, said he was going to kill Smith, according to video from inside the police car.
As Smith slowed to a stop about a mile from where the chase began, Stockley told his partner to ram their SUV into Smith's car.
Stockley then got out and fired five shots into the driver's side of Smith's car, killing the man. Police found a gun in the car, but the only DNA found on it belonged to Stockley.
The fallout resulted in a wrongful death suit against the city, which settled for $900,000. Stockley was put on desk duty and eventually suspended.
He resigned in August 2013, but activists continued to call for charges against the former officer.
In April, activists called a news conference to again raise the issue, and prosecutors said there had not been "sufficient evidence" to bring charges until recently. On Monday, Stockley was arrested in Houston, where he now lives. He's being held in a Texas prison, pending trial.
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Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
