Civil rights leaders and others reacted with a sense of relief \u2013 if only temporary \u2013 after a Texas jury sentenced a former police officer to 15 years in prison Wednesday for the shooting death of Jordan Edwards, an unarmed African-American teen in a Dallas suburb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe child murdering cop just got 15 years in prison \u2026 he\u2019ll likely serve all 15,\u201d said activist Shaun King. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t bring Jordan back, but it\u2019s the closest thing to justice we\u2019ve seen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A day earlier when the same jury found former police officer Roy Oliver guilty, King said it was an \u201canswer to our prayers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA bittersweet moment for his family and for all of us who\u2019ve fought non-stop for justice,\u201d King wrote on Twitter. \u201cWe\u2019d rather Jordan be alive, but this was so important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Journalist Jamil Smith noted a connection from Edwards to Emmett Till.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI look at his face and see Emmett Till, lynched 63 years ago today. This story didn\u2019t end in the typical fashion, though,\u201d said Smith. \u201cOliver was convicted. I hate that this news is so surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The jury deliberated for 12 hours before deciding the fate of Oliver, the former Balch Springs, Texas officer. In addition to the prison term, it imposed a fine of $10,000. Oliver was convicted of murder for the killing of Edwards, a 15-year-old high school freshman. He fired into a car full of teens on April 29 last year, saying he believed it was moving aggressively toward his partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson described Oliver as a \u201ckiller in blue\u201d who violated his oath to protect citizens. Prosecutors sought a sentence of at least 60 years while the defense argued for 20 years or less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe fact that Roy Oliver was even indicted for murder was already a small victory, but to be found guilty and convicted by a jury? These things don\u2019t happen,\u201d said Finessa Hudgens of Dallas. \u201cSo, although 15 years may not seem like much, this could be the start of something great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, wrote in an email that the Oliver\u2019s sentence, \u201cfinally breaks the systematic problem of denying equal justice to the families and victims of racially-motivated police murders of Black persons across the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
White police officers must be held accountable, said Chavis, a long-time civil rights activist and one-time head of the NAACP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe prison sentence should have been at minimum a life sentence for this brutal murder of an innocent Black teenager,\u201d said Chavis.\u201cBut today, at least police officers in America are put on notice: if you murder us, you will be punished and imprisoned. We must stop these racist police murders.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Civil rights leaders and others reacted with a sense of relief \u2013 if only temporary \u2013 after a Texas jury sentenced a former police officer to 15 years in prison Wednesday for the shooting death of Jordan Edwards, an unarmed African-American teen in a Dallas suburb. \u201cThe child murdering cop just got 15 years in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1417,274,1416],"class_list":["post-2305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-african-american-teen","tag-civil-rights","tag-shaun-king","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2306,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305\/revisions\/2306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}