Washington | Relatives of Pamela Turner, a black American killed by a police officer in the suburbs of Houston, welcomed Thursday that the author of the shootings was finally charged, 16 months after the tragedy.
“We are a step closer to obtaining the justice that my mother deserves, so that she can rest in peace, in respect”, declared her daughter Chelsea Rubin during a press conference organized by videoconference.
Agent Juan Delacruz was indicted this week by a grand jury for “assault by a person holding public authority”, a sentence punishable by life imprisonment. His trial is due to open on October 28.
With the $ 12 million in restitution also awarded this week to the relatives of another African-American woman shot by police, Breonna Taylor, “this is a clear message that the lives of black women matter too,” he said. commented the lawyer of the Ben Crump family, who defends many emblematic cases of the Black Lives Matter movement.
But Ben Crump lamented that it took that long to secure the arraignment of Juan Delacruz. Without the efforts of his family, the life of Pamela Turner “would have been swept under the carpet”, he regretted.
On May 13, 2019, Agent Delacruz had crossed paths with this 44-year-old woman, whom he knew was being prosecuted for petty crimes, and had decided to arrest her. After an altercation, he had shot her while she was on the ground.
On a video of the scene filmed by a passer-by, we hear Mme Palmer declaring, “I’m walking, I’m going home, you’re harassing me!”
After a thud, she falls to the ground, the policeman overhangs her, tries to grab her arm. She then shouts “I am pregnant”. The policeman moves away. The picture stops, but the audio recording continues and five shots are heard.
Right after the tragedy, the Baytown police assured her that she was not pregnant and that she grabbed Agent Delacruz’s Taser to shoot him. The policeman had been assigned administrative duties, but had kept his job until his charge.
The family’s lawyers deny that she used the Taser and point out that she suffered from mental disorders and that the police officer knew about it.
The case did not immediately garner strong media attention. But Pamela Turner’s name was mentioned at the funeral of George Floyd, an African-American suffocated on May 25 by a white policeman in Minneapolis, and has since resonated numerous times during major anti-racist protests across the country.