Posted on 08/22/2016 10:56:55 AM PDT by No One Special
Charlotte, NC — A community and family is mourning the loss of Daniel Kevin Harris, whose life was taken this week by a State Trooper who apparently fears sign language. Harris, who is deaf and mute, was gunned down in front of his house.
According to police, trooper Jermaine Saunders attempted to pull Harris over around 6:14 p.m. on Thursday. For an unknown reason, Harris did not stop and, instead, drove to his home.
During the pursuit, both cars became damaged and eventually came to a stop near Harris’ home.
“I was here in my driveway and I saw the highway patrol car come through and it was smoking really bad,” said neighbor Mark Barringer. “About 10 seconds later, I heard one gunshot.”
According to WCNC, Barringer says when he went to take a closer look, he saw Harris in the middle of the street. He died just a few feet from his front door. Several neighbors have put flowers near where Harris took his final breaths.
“It was surreal, you just don’t expect to see something like that,” said Barringer. “When the gunshot went off, it was scary.”
According to police, detectives say Saunders and Harris got into “an encounter” before the officer killed him. However, according to neighbors, as soon as Harris got out of his vehicle, Saunders fired.
“While on Seven Oaks Drive, the driver exited his vehicle and an encounter took place between the driver and the trooper causing a shot to be fired,” according to a statement from the State Highway Patrol.
Detectives say Harris was trying to communicate with the trooper using sign language before he was killed.
Harris died on the scene. He was 28-years-old.
• Ad-div-empty: id contentad130998 • Ad-div: id div-gpt-ad-1470255094958-0 “They should’ve deescalated and been trained to realize that this is an entirely different situation, you’re pulling someone over who is deaf, they are handicapped,” said Barringer. “To me, what happened is totally unacceptable.”
Neighbor Ryan Russell said he’d see the man out in the neighborhood speaking in sign language with his family. “It seemed like a very peaceful family,” Russell told WBTV. “These things are always heartbreaking.”
Audria Bridges, special agent in charge of the SBI office that covers the Charlotte region, said Saunders has been placed on administrative leave and an investigation is underway.
“The SBI is in the process of obtaining all available dash cam or body camera video present on the scene from the State Highway Patrol as well as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, as CMPD responded to the scene immediately after the shooting,” Bridges said.
According to the Charlotte Observer, public records show an interpreter provided sign language for Harris at a court hearing in Florida in 2010. At the hearing, he was found not guilty of misdemeanor larceny and had a charge of misdemeanor resisting property recovery dismissed, records show.
Harris was found guilty of resisting an officer in 2010 when he lived in Connecticut, according to public records. However, this resisting charge was likely due to the fact that Harris could not hear the officer’s commands.
In the land of the free, a deaf man suspected of driving too fast can be killed in cold blood. Unfortunately, as we’ve shown time and again, this type of mistreatment and attacks on the deaf by police are all too common.
It seems there’s a lot more to this. I’m sure in the next few days we’ll find out what really took place. I find it hard to believe that both vehicles were damaged, sounds more like a chase occurred. The question is why?
You're jumping ahead, which is what the article did. We are not yet at the point of justifying what the officer did. The giant gap is in why the officer was pursuing and what all happened between then and when Harris got home got and out of his car. Until those details are revealed, no one thing (drugs, damage to cop car, etc) will justify the shooting because we need to see the whole picture.
If the subject was signing to the cop, what conclusion would a functional cop make?
When you are pulled over by a cop, what do they tell you to do with your hands? You know, those things at the end of your arms that can hold guns and knives and rocks.
Do they tell you to sign with them?
Yes, they do seem to be too stupid to recognize anything out of their tiny little box.
I guess you haven’t heard the news about cops being assassinated simply for being cops.
You should try to crawl out from under your rock once in a while.
You should take off your arm band and try to blend in.
You were there! You were a witness?
That’s an entirely different story!
I thought you were just some know-it-all asshole who doesn’t need any actual facts to come to his conclusion.
I sincerely apologize.
The exact same thing can be said regarding your stance.
Your stance is to bash the cop. My stance is that you should always obey cops and say “yes sir” and “no sir.” Anybody who does not do that (in this case he has a history of it) is flirting with disaster.
You can’t fix stupid.
My stance is not "cop bashing". My stance is that citizens have a right to a trial before their peers before facing execution. The cop has his side arm in order to protect himself from those who seek to do him harm. Sign language has never been know to kill anyone, unless "commence firing, fire at will" was the message signed. I sincerely doubt that the cop was in fear of his life since even he was not so stupid to mistake sign language for a weapon.
Cops have responsibilities that do not include summary execution for infractions of the law. They need to consider all things before the cut somebody down. Perhaps the screening process for cops need to seek those of higher IQ and remaining calm under stress. This smells like the fellow was executed for pissing the cop off.
I am all for law and order, but I will never cede the the misbegotten notion that cops are of a more precious or a higher social standing than the citizens. You have attitudes that are more becoming to a police state. I respect cops and will not give them them cause to turn their weapons on me. I do, however, expect them to respect and cherish the lives of those in their charge.
This hits close to home fro me.
I have relatives who are Deaf and I know sign language and have Deaf friends I see regularly.
Whoo hoo!
Preach it!!!
Block funding sanctary cities———————————————
That's not true because hearing people are not used to using their eyes like the Deaf are.
The thing that I've seen the Deaf do that absolutely amazes me is that they are focused on a conversation with the person across from them and someone sitting next to them is having a conversation with someone else, and the Deaf person will shoot a comment to the other conversation that he wasn't even watching.
They are far more aware visually of what is going on around them than hearing people. So flashing lights are enough for them that wouldn't be enough for hearing folks.
Not only that, Deaf is also a cultural thing. Many Deaf people have some level of hearing that enables them to hear sounds like sirens.
That's one of the most common sense comments on this thread.
Thanks so much for that great explanation.
.
Please, tell us how someone who can't hear is supposed to obey a cops VERBAL command?
You can’t fix stupid.
And you can't always fix deaf.
The cop was out of order. If the Deaf man was signing, then he CLEARLY did not have anything in his hands with which he could shoot the cop.
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