Pennsylvania officer charged with homicide after shooting caught on video

Associated Press in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Sunday 19 April 2015 17.01 BST

Video from a camera attached to a police officer’s stun gun shows how David Kassick died, authorities say: two bullets, four seconds apart, fired into his back as he lay face down.

Two months before a police officer was captured on video shooting a South Carolina motorist eight times in the back, Kassick was killed by a Pennsylvania officer who is now charged with criminal homicide.

“I think it would be impossible not to see some similarities between the two, inasmuch as the manner in which both individuals are shot,” said Christopher Slusser, a lawyer working for Kassick’s family who has seen the video in question.

Unlike the video in the South Carolina case, which has itself resulted in a murder charge, the footage recorded by Hummelstown police officer Lisa Mearkle’s stun gun has not been released. Attorneys for the officer want to keep it that way: they asked a judge on Friday to bar the prosecution from releasing it.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday, to determine if there is enough evidence to send the case to trial. ...

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