Cop Shooting - (ex) Officer Thomas White is Still Free

I've written about this case before, but until recently I haven't seen any news about the case.  Then I found something in The Toledo Blade the other day.

On May 23, 2009 in an act of cowardice, Ottawa Hills police officer Thomas White shot motorcyclist Michael McCloskey in the back, paralyzing him from the waist down.  Thomas White is completely unrepentant, as would be expected of any gang member shooting an innocent victim.  The victim shouldn't have been there, and that's all.



I wrote about this incident in Ottawa Hills Shooting, Ottawa Hills Police Shooting and Ottawa Hills Police Shooting: Sentencing.   Michael McCloskey sued the Village of Ottawa Hills, and the village paid off.   No surprise there, right?   Here's a link to the article from the local scandal sheet: Village of Ottawa Hills, motorcyclist OK settlement terms.  From the article in the Toledo Blade:

A motorcyclist shot by an Ottawa Hills police officer during a 2009 traffic stop resulting in his paralysis has agreed to a $5 million settlement with the village.

Let's offer Thomas White five million in exchange for surgically paralyzing him from the waist down and see if he takes the offer.  I'm betting he doesn't.  Again, from The Blade:

White was criminally charged with felonious assault with a gun specificaition. After a week-long trial in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, the jury deliberated for about six hours before reaching a guilty verdict on May 14, 2010.

The jury should have arrived at this verdict in 15 minutes. Just why it would take a group of 12 imbeciles six hours to pronounce this cowardly son-of-a-bitch guilty as hell is beyond my imagination. But okay anyway, now he's officially guilty. Let's throw him in prison and get him introduced to his new roommate, Pookie.

The following month, White was sentenced to seven years in prison for the assault conviction plus three years for the gun specification. He remains free on a $100,000 bond while an appeal of his conviction and sentence is pending in the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals.

White claimed in the appeal that he was acting under a good-faith mistake when he fired the shot and so, as a police officer, should be immune from criminal prosecution. Also listed as an error was the contention that it was “unconstitutional to convict White for a firearms specification given he was required to carry [a] firearm in the [course] of his employment.”

Attorneys argued the case before a three-judge panel in March when White’s attorney stated that precedent cases show the standard in reviewing an officer’s actions is “what would a reasonable officer do with the same set of facts.”

An assistant Lucas County prosecutor countered that the appellate court need only look at a dashboard camera recording of the incident from White’s patrol vehicle to see what the jury used to decide White’s guilt.

An opinion has not yet been released.

This is a prime example of our screwed up justice system in action.  When he was gently arrested, White was immediately released on bond, which was set at a paltry $100,000.  Through all this legal chicanery, White is still out on bond.  It's been over three years since the crime, and White is still running around, fat and happy as a New York rat.  Now the Court of Appeals is supposed to make a decision, but I doubt it will.  I think it's likely that the decision will be postponed indefinitely, and White will never see the inside of a prison.

Where's the justice here?  Where's the equal treatment for all?  California?