GA Cop Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter After Negligent Discharge During Arrest

I don’t think any of us will ever forget the video of the dreadlocked DEA agent talking about how he was the only one in that room professional enough to handle his “Glock 40” just moments before he shot himself in the leg. In that moment, DEA Special Agent Lee Paige became a meme and an example of how law enforcement officers might receive taxpayer-funded training, but that didn’t mean the training took with all of them.

As we’ve seen in other examples.

But at least in those cases, everyone recovered. Unfortunately, a police officer from DeKalb County in Georgia isn’t so lucky.

A now-former Georgia police officer has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after he accidentally discharged his weapon during an arrest, fatally shooting a teenager he was attempting to handcuff, according to court filings.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) filed criminal charges against Derrick Harris Jr., 37, who was an officer with the DeKalb County Police Department, on Wednesday, a day after the deadly shooting.

The teen — 19-year-old Seth Jayden Eccles, of Savannah — was shot Tuesday evening in the backyard of a home in Avondale Estates, according to GBI.

U.S. Postal Inspection Service agents had questioned him earlier that afternoon regarding the armed robbery of a mail carrier, according to GBI. Law enforcement later learned he had an active arrest warrant and began searching for Eccles, who allegedly hid in nearby woods after being allowed to walk away following questioning, according to GBI.

After multiple 911 callers reported a suspicious person moving through the backyards of homes in Avondale Estates, Harris located Eccles in a backyard of a home, according to GBI.

Harris gave the teen verbal commands at gunpoint and Eccles complied, according to GBI. The teen was lying on his stomach as Harris attempted to take him into custody, with the officer holding a firearm in one hand at the teen’s back and handcuffs in the other, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.  

“During the process of attempting to handcuff Eccles, Harris accidentally fired his firearm,” the affidavit stated. “This accidental discharge resulted in the injury and death of Eccles.”

The problem most likely stems from having a finger on the trigger while trying to manipulate handcuffs and deal with a suspect who is probably not making the job any easier.

Beyond that, I’m not going to get into police procedures or anything like that because, frankly, I don’t know enough about what was actually happening on the ground or about police procedures in a case like this. I’m more than willing to step out of my lane, but only if I’m confident I know what I’m talking about. Here, I’m not, so I won’t. Let’s just assume Harris was in the clear for having his gun out in the first place and move on.

I hate that this happened. I don’t mind bad people getting shot and killed by the police, but only when they’re a threat to someone, such as the officers themselves. At that point, they bring it on themselves and deserve what happens.

It sounds like Eccles, despite potentially being a less-than-stellar citizen of my home state, did of my home state, didn’t. He could have grown out of his wild ways and become a productive citizen. He might not have. We don’t know.

What we do know is that an officer allegedly shot and killed someone who didn’t need shooting. It doesn’t look like it was intentional, hence the unintentional manslaughter charges, but now his life and career are likely ruined forever. Even if he’s cleared of wrongdoing, this will weigh on him to some degree or another for the rest of his life.

Police officers are people. Most are good people. Some are actually very bad people. Some are practically saints. Most are somewhere along the spectrum, and even good people can be careless and ignore their training.

While anti-gunners are more than eager to treat the police like they are the gun experts, at least when they’re not screaming to abolish the police, the reality is that they’re just regular citizens and shouldn’t get special treatment, at least outside of the performance of their duties.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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