TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A white former Oklahoma police officer on trial for the fourth time in the 2014 killing of his daughter's black boyfriend told jurors Wednesday he had no choice but to shoot the young man.
Former Tulsa officer Shannon Kepler was the last witness called in the case. He doesn't deny that he shot 19-year-old Jeremey Lake, but he said he did so because he believed Lake was armed.
Kepler said he saw Lake reaching into his waistband, so he shot him. No weapon was found on or near Lake's body.
"He's bringing it, I'm bringing it," Kepler told the courtroom. "It was either him or me. I'm not going to stand there and get shot."
Closing arguments were expected to happen Wednesday afternoon. The case will go to the jury after that.
The shooting happened while Lake and Kepler's adult daughter walked in what the ex-cop has described as a crime-ridden neighborhood. Lisa Kepler had been in and out of a homeless shelter after her father prohibited her from bringing men into his house.
Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday after jurors heard a 911 call in which Lisa Kepler screamed to dispatchers that her father had shot Lake.
Three previous juries deadlocked 11-1, 10-2 and 6-6, forcing the judge to declare mistrials.
Officers across the U.S. involved in fatal shootings of black residents have recently faced similar trials. In the past year — including in Tulsa — juries were unwilling to vote for a conviction or prosecutors were unwilling to charge officers in cases from Baltimore to St. Louis. In May, a jury acquitted a white Tulsa officer in the killing of an unarmed black man who had his hands up, which roiled the city's black community. The officer has since left the Tulsa force.