NEW YORK – A New York City grand jury on Wednesday declined to indict a police officer in the beheading of an unarmed African-American, 21 year old Shaun Peterson, concluding that the officer had acted in self-defense and applied “only a reasonable amount of force.”
“The jury found that there was no probable cause for indicting Officer Winthrop, as he had a reasonable fear the unarmed man he was talking to would maybe, potentially, in the future, if certain preconditions were met, start acting all black,” said city prosecutor Stephen James. “Under the American criminal justice system this entitles an officer to use his standard issue hacksaw to subdue the perpetrator.”
The ruling comes despite the city medical examiner’s finding that the victim’s death was a homicide caused by “hemorrhaging, oxygen deprivation, and disconnection of the nervous system from the brain due to rapid separation of the head from the rest of the body”.
James tried to reassure protesters as to the fairness of the hearing.
“Yes, the coroner did determine that this ‘beheading’ was a homicide,” said James. “But it simply wouldn’t be fair to incarcerate one entire white cop for the killing of a black civilian. Do you know how crazy that sounds?”
James went on to explain that the verdict was sound as the jury had contained excellent racial diversity.
“We had a black, a couple Puerto Ricans and one dude who I think was Moroccan, although I admit he could have just been a dark skinned Italian,” recalled James.”That’s pretty fair, right?”
Shortly after the verdict was announced Officer Winthrop issued a statement regarding the incident: “sorry, brah.”
