Ex-St. Louis Police Officer Charged With Murder

Jason Stockley, 35, charged in death of Anthony Lamar Smith
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 16, 2016 7:10 PM CDT
Ex-St. Louis Police Officer Charged With Murder
In this file photo, St. Louis police gather at the scene of a fatal officer-involved shooting.   (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, File)

Prosecutors have charged a former St. Louis police officer with first-degree murder in a 2011 shooting that killed a 24-year-old man after a chase, the AP reports. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce charged 35-year-old Jason Stockley on Monday and a judge ordered him held without bond. Prosecutors say Stockley was on duty when he fired into 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith's car after supposedly witnessing a drug transaction. Stockley and his partner, Officer Brian Bianchi, crashed their SUV in the chase but just backed up and resumed pursuit, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Prosecutors say that during the chase, Stockley could be heard on an in-car video saying he planned to kill the suspect.

"Going to kill this (expletive), don’t you know it," Stockley said, per court documents. As Smith's car slowed down, Stockley apparently told Bianchi to "Hit him right now" and the SUV slammed Smith's vehicle. Stockley then got out, approached Smith's vehicle, and shot him five times, prosecutors say. The murder charges follow calls by activists to press charges against Stockley, who is white, for killing Smith, who is black, the Dispatch reports. The Board of Police Commissioners already settled a $900,000 wrongful-death lawsuit in the case in 2013, the same year that Stockley is said to have left the department. He's now in custody in the Houston area. (More police shooting stories.)

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