Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Dismissing Case of Black Man Killed by Knoxville Police

•  Mother says son holding cell phone, not gun, when KPD officer shot him [MORE]
  

A state appellate court has upheld a ruling clearing two Knoxville Police Department officers of claims of negligence in the controversial shooting death of a teenager. The state Court of Appeals ruled in an opinion released this week that KPD officers Jason Keck and David Ogle were not at fault in the May 2003 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Sean Gillispie. Keck shot Gillispie once in the chest after he saw what the officer testified was a gun in the teenager's hand. Gillispie was in the back of a car parked at the Weigel's convenience store on Summit Hill Drive, where the officers had been sent to handle a complaint by store employees of a loud crowd in the parking lot. Gillispie's mother, Tanya Gillispie, filed a lawsuit in Knox County Circuit Court alleging that what Keck believed was a gun was actually a cell phone. She blamed Ogle for failing to properly communicate with Keck in the moments before the shooting. Testimony at a hearing in the lawsuit last year showed that Ogle saw a gun on the back seat where Gillispie was seated. Ogle testified that Gillispie's hand was on top of the weapon. Keck testified that Gillispie lowered his hands and then pointed the gun at the officer. When the teenager refused Keck's demand to disarm, Keck testified that he fired one shot, which struck Gillispie in the chest. Ogle pulled Gillispie from the car and onto the pavement, where he died. The gun was found on the back seat. There was no blood on it. A bloody cell phone was later discovered inside a bag of clothing removed from the teenager's body at the morgue. Judge Dale Workman ruled Keck's testimony was unequivocal and undisputed - it was a gun and not a cell phone in Gillispie's hand. The officer's use of deadly force was, therefore, justified, the judge opined. The court also turned aside Tanya Gillispie's contention that Workman, whose son is a deputy with the Knox County Sheriff's Office, should have bowed out of the case. [MORE]