Former University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing
pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter in
the July 19 shooting death of Samuel DuBose.
At the arraignment,
the judge set Tensing's bond at $1 million.
Some inside the
courtroom applauded when Judge Megan Shanahan announced the bond, and she
quickly admonished them and called for order in the court.
Tensing's next
court date is set for August 19.
Hamilton County
Prosecutor Joe Deters announced the charges at a news conference earlier this
week.
"I've been doing this for over 30 years. This is the most
asinine act I've ever seen a police officer make -- totally unwarranted,"
he said. "It's an absolute tragedy in the year 2015 that anyone would
behave in this manner. It was senseless."
Deters played body camera footage of the traffic stop shooting that
appeared to contradict Tensing's version of what happened.
The prosecutor,
who said he was shocked when he first saw the video, was adamant that DuBose,
who is black, had not acted aggressively toward Tensing, who is white.
"People
want to believe that Mr. DuBose had done something violent towards the officer
-- he did not. He did not at all. I feel so sorry for his family and what they
lost, and I feel sorry for the community, too," Deters said.
A reporter asked
Deters whether he thought Tensing tried to mislead investigators looking into
the incident.
"Yes,"
he said. "I think he was making an excuse for a purposeful killing"
of DuBose, who was unarmed.
If convicted, Tensing could go to prison for life, Deters said
at a Wednesday news conference.
The DuBose
family is reeling from the incident, Cleshawn DuBose told CNN.
"We're
devastated, It's heartbreaking. The family is heartbroken," she said of
her slain brother.
Another of Sam
DuBose's sisters, Terina DuBose Allen, said the presence of body cameras helped
bring the story to light.
"I think
that if there had not been a body camera, that Sam would have been left with
the memory of everyone saying he was basically trying to kill a police
officer," she said. "They would have turned a nonviolent man who was
loved into a poster child for violence against police officers."
Cincinnati Mayor
John Cranley said he's satisfied with how the case has progressed.
"We wanted
the right thing to be done, the just thing to be done, the fair thing to be
done," he said. "We wanted the truth to come out."
Cincinnati
Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell said these are difficult times for law
enforcement agencies around the country, in light of the police shooting death
in Ferguson, Missouri, and other shootings involving white officers and black
victims.
"It's the
most difficult policing environment in the history of our nation. But, that
doesn't excuse away bad behavior," he said. "We have got to be right.
We have got to be constitutional."
'Feared for his life'
Tensing fatally shot DuBose, 43, during
a July 19 traffic stop over an alleged missing license tag. The officer has
said he was forced to fire his weapon after almost being run over.
His body camera
video captured Tensing telling officers after the shooting: "I think I'm
OK. He was just dragging me. I thought I was going to get run over. I was
trying to stop him."
He says his hand
was caught in DuBose's car, and he later left the scene with another officer to
get checked out at a hospital. The footage shows no one rendering aid to
DuBose.
Tensing, 25, surrendered to authorities shortly after news of
the indictment broke. He has been fired from his job.
Tensing's
attorney told reporters that he believes the officer feared for his life.
"The guy
jams the keys in the ignition," Stew Mathews told CNN.
"Turns the
car on, jams it (into) drive and mashes the accelerator. He wasn't slowly
pulling away. (Tensing) feared for his life. He thought he was going to be
sucked under the car that was pulling away from him. He thought he was going to
get sucked under and killed."
The officer's
account was contradicted by Deters, the prosecutor, who said that Tensing was
not dragged.
"This just
does not happen in the United States. People don't get shot for a traffic stop
unless they are violent towards the police officer, and he (DuBose)
wasn't," Deters said. "He was simply slowly rolling away. That's all
he did."
Footage from a
third body camera also exists, a prosecutor's office representative told CNN on
Thursday. The video is from the body camera of another responding officer,
David Lindenschmidt. His body cam captures Tensing saying that he thought he
was going to be run over by a car, according to Tensing's attorney.
'Huge first step'
DuBose's death is the latest in a string
of controversial killings of
people by police that include
Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Michael Brown in Ferguson, and Walter Scott in North
Charleston, South Carolina.
The people
killed in each case have been black.
DuBose's mother
told reporters that she is grateful "everything was uncovered" in her
son's shooting.
"I want
everybody to just lift up their heads in prayer, and thank God because this one
did not go unsolved and hidden," said Audrey DuBose. "We're going to
continue to fight together with God."
Mark O'Mara, an
attorney for the family, said he does not believe there would have been an
indictment if there hadn't been video of the shooting.
"We've now
made a huge first step because -- in a situation where sometimes people believe
that officers are not held accountable for their actions -- in this case, one
is being held accountable. So Cincinnati is showing the rest of us how to do
this right," O'Mara said.
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