911 Call Shows NC Mom Terrified of Unarmed Football Player
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Mitch Kezar / Getty Images(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — The shooting of an unarmed former Florida A&M football player in Charlotte, N.C., began with a 911 call from a terrified woman whose front door he had knocked on, possibly seeking help, the tape of the emergency call released Tuesday shows.
The man, now identified as Jonathan Ferrell, 24, had crashed his car nearby and arrived at the woman’s house to ask for help around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, police said.
“There’s a guy breaking in my front door — trying to kick it down,” she told the operator. “Oh god. Oh my god.”
The woman, who was alone in the house with her sleeping child, told the 911 operator that the stranger approached her front door and she opened it, thinking it was her husband coming home from work, and then slammed it shut when she saw the man.
The opening of the door set off the alarm on her home, and the man began yelling for her to turn off the alarm, she told the operator.
The woman was frantic about how to defend herself if he attempted to come inside.
“He’s not in the house, he’s in the front yard yelling,” she told the operator. “I can’t believe I opened the door. What the f**k is wrong with me. My husband has a gun and I can’t find it.”
When police arrived at the woman’s home, Ferrell began running toward one officer, according to the police account of the incident.
“Oh my god. Where is he going? Why is he running? Why is he leaving?” the woman can be heard saying on the 911 call. “Oh my god.”
According to police, when Ferrell began running at the officer, one cop tried unsuccessfully to Tase him. When that failed, another officer fired his gun, shooting at Ferrell 12 times and hitting him 10 times. Ferrell died at the scene.
The gunshots are not audible on the 911 tape.
Police determined the shooting was “excessive” and that Officer Randall Kerrick “did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon.”
Kerrick turned himself in and was charged with voluntary manslaughter.
His attorney said Tuesday that he is confident Kerrick’s name will be cleared.
“We’re going to allow this case to be tried in a court of law,” defense attorney Mike Greene said Tuesday, according to ABC affiliate WSOC-TV in Charlotte. “However, we’re confident at the resolution of this case and that it will be found that Officer Kerrick’s actions were justified on the night in question.”
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