The Ezell Ford Case
On 11TH August 2014 in Florence, L.A California a young man aged 25 years going by the name Ezell Ford was grisly murdered by two law enforcement officers (Jeniffer, 2015). The officers from the Los Angeles Police Department (L.A.P.D) did a multiple number of shots on Ezell which led to his instant death. The shootings spiked a lot of remorseful feelings especially from the Africa- American community where he came from. They put up demonstrations that lasted from weeks to several months. The Ford family on the other hand filed a lawsuit demanding 75 million dollars in compensation for all the damage caused. However, the case was met with a lot of controversy from the testimonies submitted by witnesses from the scene of the crime and the officers from the L.A.P.D which quite contradicted each other. They all gave different reviews on the exact happenings from the scene of the shootings leading to an undesirable conclusion. A committee set up by the L.A police commissioners in June 2015 concluded that one officer responsible for shooting Ford was justified but the other was not since he acted outside the set guidelines in the police department (Kate et.al, 2017). The fact that Ford was murdered without trial clearly showed an infringement in his civil rights. He could have been arrested to answer to the accusations. Maybe he was indeed innocent but he was not granted the opportunity to defend himself. The law enforcement officers on the other hand could have acted in self-defense from a person who was armed and therefore a danger to them or this was maybe another classical case of police brutality.
In September of 2017, Ezell Ford got an arrest warrant from the L.A.P.D who accused him of various criminal offenses. One was possession of marijuana intending to sell it and the other was the possession of a loaded gun. However, when asked to plead, Ford claimed that the captured marijuana was for his personal use and not for sale as had been earlier on suspected. This led to a drop on his charges to those of misdemeanor for which he was required to pay a small amount of fine money to obtain his freedom. For the other charge involving possession of a loaded firearm, Ford decided to take a guilty plea that earned him a ninety-day jail term. All these occurrences took place in January 2008 after which Ford was caught up in another crime scene that led to him getting a gunshot wound on his leg. Witnesses from this incident, who were mainly his neighbors claimed that Ford was just a victim of the crime since he was only standing by when it all went down and this could be depicted from his deteriorating mental capacity. After his death on the 11th August, Ford’s parents took to his defense claiming that Ford had a mental illness that was well known by the society and the police force. Ford had been diagnosed with depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disease which led to him taking medication that reduced his physical activity level. The whole neighborhood also came to his defense with most of the neighbors attesting his innocence and vulnerability to his pre-existing medical condition and laid the total blame on the police for their brutality (Kate et.al, 2017).
The Los Angeles district attorney, Jackie Lacie refused to give prosecution to the officers accused of this crime. Immediately after his death, Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas were placed on paid leave to give room for investigations into the crime. Officers from L.A.P.D had to work in groups to evade the wrath of the masses who were already issuing threats especially through social media platforms. On August 18th Eric Garcetti, the then L.A mayor assured the masses of full and fair investigations even with the challenge of few witnesses which led to the hold of Ford’s autopsy results. A report by the then L.A.P.D chief concluded that the two officers, Sharlton and Villegas did not commit any crime and their actions were following the guidelines of the police department. He even went to the extent of alluding that Wampler was indeed justified in the drug possession suspicion. Despite the General of police inspector, Alex Bustamantes plea for witnesses, only one person came forward, and, in November of 2014, Jackie Lacey the District Attorney, Price and Beck summoned the available witnesses before them. No new witnesses came forward and some of the already existing ones even became incorporative. This led to the emergence of a lot of insights, investigations, and finally conclusions in the case. Charges on Wampler for instance were dropped on the basis that he acted on self-defense. This is because, before the shooting, Ford is said to have depicted suspicious behavior which could mean danger to the law enforcement officers. Vallegas on the other hand was just acting as a cover to his college. Eventually, the prosecution was left with no choice but to free the officers of any charge (Jeniffer,2015).
The Ezell Ford Case denotes the complicated process taken to achieve justice. If I were the district attorney then maybe I would have done it differently. In my personal opinion, justice was not served for Ford’s murder. This is going by the fact that the police in question knew who they were dealing with and still went ahead to exercise excess force and a life was eventually lost. From the readings, Ford’s mental condition was not only known to his family and neighbors but the Los Angeles Police Force was also aware of it. This was not their first encounter or arrest of him so they had his medical records. Despite all this knowledge about his illness they still went ahead and brutally murdered him. Reports have argued and many would claim that the lives of the two officers in the shooting were in danger but this is disputable. Ford did not raise any attack on the officers and instead he walked away. Instead of shooting him several and eventually taking away his young life, what if they shot him once on the leg to disable his movement instead. A teaser would have worked even better in this case but instead it was not even an option. If I were the D.A then maybe I would have put my evaluations into thought to achieve a fairer judgment. All lives matter and this too would have been saved if the right guidelines and considerations were put into place. Justice would have been served with the arrests of the mentioned officers to reduce the possibility of such incidents in the future.
References
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ezell-ford-no-charges-20170124-story.html