New Mexico Jury Convicts Police Officer of Voluntary Manslaughter In Fatal Shooting Of Black Man

A former police officer was found guilty Wednesday of voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a Black man during a 2022 confrontation at a New Mexico gas station. Las Cruces police Officer Brad Lunsford’s verdict in a jury trial is the latest outcome in cases that prosecutors have linked to systematic brutality against Black people by members of law enforcement, nearly five years after the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis, the Associated Press reports. Lunsford, who is white, had pleaded not guilty. The charge of voluntary manslaughter with a firearms enhancement carries a possible sentence of up to nine years in prison. Prosecutors said Lunsford shot Presley Eze at point-blank range in a scuffle after police responded to a 911 call from a gas station attendant who reported that Eze stole beer. Eze allegedly placed his hand on a second officer’s stun gun before Lunsford drew his service weapon and shot Eze in the back of the head.

Philip Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said most fatal shootings by on-duty officers are determined to be legally justified under precedent stemming from two 1980s-era U.S. Supreme Court rulings. “It is incredibly difficult for a prosecutor to obtain a conviction in a jury trial in one of these cases, and that’s because jurors are very reluctant to second guess the split-second, often life-or-death decisions of an on-duty police officer in a potentially violent street encounter,” said Stinson, who compiled records with university colleagues and students through the Police Integrity Research Group showing that 205 nonfederal law enforcement officers have been arrested on criminal charges of homicide or manslaughter over the past 20 years, resulting in 66 convictions, 27 convictions of them for manslaughter or homicide. The 205 charges resulted from more than 900 fatal shootings by on-duty state and local law enforcement officers typically take place each year in the U.S., Stinson said.