| On 8-2-1997, Arlington police
shot and kill Kennith Harris, after a incident that started of as a traffic stop. This was
a two part incident as such from newspaper, police accounts, and the medical examiner
report. In the newspaper write reports it said that Harris was stoped by one officer whom
he got in a fight with and was sprayed with can of pepper spray, and the officer called
for backup after they fought, and Harris ran back to his car. This officer tryed to get
Harris out of the car, when it started to move, and he had his hand on door and dragged a
few feet. A backup officer arrived an fired his gun at Harris's moveing car. In another
account of the part-one stop, has Harris being stop by two officers the one who made the
stop an a backup. This time Harris gets out of car peacefully, and then gets into a fight
with both officers and they used pepper spray on him. He ran back to his car and drove
away with officer clinging briefly to his car, and the second officer shot at the car. |
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During this quick incident the
officer got a few cuts to his hand, and Harris got:
(1) To the head area a 1/4x1/8 " liner scratch-like abrasions, two reddish abrasions
on right side of face, 1/2x1/4" and 3/4x1/8" below lower lip, each approximately
1/4x1/8
(2) superficial lacerations below left side of lower lip, 1/4"; C-shaped laceration
on left cheek, 1/4 to 1/8 " deep, on the neck
(3) 1/2x1/16-1/8" faint reddish abrasion on right antero-lateral mid-neck, right
upper extermity , 3x3/4" redish contusion on upper arm,abrasion on dorsal shoulder,
1/4x1/16", laceration on dorsal upper arm to 1/8"deep with a reddish contusion
at its lateral margin, 1/4x1/4"; three reddish abrasions on forearm, 1/4x1/8 to
1x1/4", left lower extermity, 1/2x1/8" reddish abrasion on dorso-lateral thigh,
1/4x1/6" reddish abrasion on antero-lateral thigh. The next part of the stop of
the stop went as such:
(A) Arlington Police go on low speed chase of Harris's car for two-miles, and setup a
roadblock with several patrol cars ,and makeing him come to stop. After stoping his car
Harris started repeatedly raming the police cars at low speed (4 to 5 mil.hr.) but he
eventually stoped, backed up and waited.As officer's got out of their cars and started
walking toward Harris car to arrest him, he drove foward as if to hit the officers with
his car. The officers then shot ( 13 or more rounds) at his car fatally injuring him. |
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(B) Is the same as a above but as
the officers got of their cars and approached Harris's car, police said it looked as if
Harris was going to run over them.
(C) Has Harris's vehicle surrounded by Arlington Police vehicle's, and he attempted to
flee by raming the police cars in front of him, and police then fired multiple rounds
killing him as persisted to ram the cars in front of him.also part of this report has ,
Harris being shot while attempting to ram his way through a gauntlet of police cars.
(D) The police officers were protecting themselves from Harris's forward moveing car, so
the officers shot 13 or more times into the the drivers front and passengers side rear
doors, with most of the shot's into the driver's side, and not one shot fired at the front
of the car.
(E) Arlington County would not let the mother come down and see Harris body
(to sure it was him) for two days after the shooting, because the matter was still under
investigation, and hung up the phone on her when tryed to get more information.
(F) Why would you take Harris out of his car after the shooting, with two shot's to the
head, and handcuff him behind the back, and lay prone in the street in a pool of blood.The
thoughts in this write up deal with my son's death, but maybe you or someone will see it
and think. Just what is going on, and deal with the increasing incidents of police
harassment,brutality, and civil rights abuse in America to the small people who just do
not count dead or alive.Any help, advice or anything you can do for me would be good,
because nobody wants to hear about this.
THANK YOU for your time, and GOD LOVE YOU
BETTY A. HARRIS |
