A protester holds a poster board displaying pictures of Jonathan Ferrell on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015 in Charlotte, N.C. Demonstrators marched on Friday evening and Saturday protesting the mistrial declared in the case of a white police officer accused in the shooting death of Ferrell, an unarmed black man. (Jeff Siner/The Charlotte Observer via AP)
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina state attorneys have decided against retrying a White police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Black man after his trial ended last week in a deadlock.
Senior Deputy Attorney General Robert Montgomery told the Mecklenburg County district attorney Friday of the state’s decision in the case of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Officer Randall Kerrick. He had been accused of voluntary manslaughter in the September 2013 death of Jonathan Ferrell, a former college football player.
The jury in the case deadlocked with an 8-4 vote in favor of acquittal, leading the judge to declare a mistrial.
Montgomery wrote to District Attorney Andrew Murray that state attorneys will submit dismissal papers to end the case. Montgomery says it’s the prosecutors’ “unanimous belief a retrial will not yield a different result.”